Quotable quotes from Mary and Peter.

1949 - Mary on her Sorbonne graduate work: "Paris was a bummer - you had to eat all those long loaves of bread."

1951 - Peter traveling to Indianapolis from State College to Roz and Ray's wedding: "I had just thrown away a cigar and the Oldsmobile died."

1951 - Mary at Roz and Ray's wedding: "I am in an interesting condition."

From Roz and Ray Stone

Mary and Pete were originally friends of my husband's. The three of them had sailed for France on the "Empress of Canada" together in 1948 and saw one another frequently in Paris where Jim and Pete were both students. I didn't meet Mary and Pete until after those glorious days were over, though I heard much about them. This story dates from the late forties.

My husband Jim and I had met at the U of C and after we married we lived in the "pre-fabs", childless and penniless, for what seemed like an infinity of time. Meanwhile, Pete and Mary had graduated to the suburbs and were fast acquiring the appurtenances of post-war, middle-class life: a baby, a brand new Ford, and a GI mortgage, the first two of which they drove out to the campus to show us. We were properly impressed with the Ford, having no car of our own since Jim's 1938 Chevy had to be junked, and equally impressed with the curly-headed Martha who was two. We were saying a lengthy goodbye at curbside when I observed Martha, who was standing in the backseat, give a cry of protest and release a stream which was soon dampening the backseat of the new Ford. Instead of being concerned about the condition of their Ford, Pete and Mary remained entirely unfazed and drove off laughing and murmuring expressions of reassurance to Martha. And that was how I learned about new cars and children and appropriate priorities, thanks to Pete and Mary.

Pete and Mary have always been symbols to me of the good life, lived freely and generously and I felicitate them on continuing to do so.

Best wishes to you all.

From Joan Schroeter

Back in the early 50's, Audrey and I were headed to New York to visit a couple of friends from the University of Wisconsin. We decided to stop halfway and see Pete and Mary for one night. Pete was teaching at Penn State at the time, and poor Mary was very pregnant with her first. When we got there, she was in bed. So daddy-to-be Peter pitched in with his superior culinary abilities to make us supper in the little apartment.

He asked me to help him get the duck out of the oven and carve it for supper. Audrey set the table with the paper plates and plastic-ware he had set out so there would be no dishes to do and nothing to put away but the quick foldup of everything in the paper tablecloth.

When I got the duck out of the oven, Peter had double-wrapped it carefully in aluminum foil (for the same labor-saving purpose as the "dishes".) When I opened it up, a quart of duck grease flowed onto the floor from a lily-white duck. You can imagine how tasty and appealing the main (and only) course was. Not much was consumed before we all agreed to go right to the dessert course, which was ice cream. Only trouble with that was, there were not enough new paper plates. So we all had to dump the duck and grease, and eat off our old paper plates.

We vowed never to return to eat at Peter and Mary's unless Mary was doing the cooking.

From Harry Senn