You were born 23 November 1960, if memory serves.  We met the first time on a Friday or Saturday, I think, late summer of 1974 or 1975.  It was a fine summer afternoon.  I overcame my shyness of one on one time with a female after looking in your eyes. I had to know you better. 

I asked you to join me for a cup of coffee, and to my amazement, you said yes.  We walked to either Avenue Restaurant or 'Happiness is...', the ice cream shop on the corner of Oak Park Avenue and North Blvd. 

I let you do most of the talking. You had run away from your mother, in Dayton, Ohio, hoping to live with your dad in his apartment at 112 S. Clinton in Oak Park.

A day, or a week later, we had a picnic downtown Chicago, in Grant Park.  Did we go to the Planetarium that day? I think so.

We had a couple of such trips that summer, as you fretted whether your mother would let you stay with your father, Donald F.(S.?) Austin.  Your mother acquiesced, so long as your grades were okay and you stayed out of trouble.   Shortly after the school year began at Oak Park - River Forest High School, you vanished, presumably back to Dayton, and your mother.

Having some foundless fear of authority, or perhaps fearing a presumed truth I didn't want to know, I couldn't find the nerve to talk to your father about you.  But I did write a couple of letters over the years.

He hung on to one or two, perhaps all of those letters, and when you came to visit at Thanksgiving, 1978, he gave them to you.  I was living with two friends in Forest Park, on Washington Blvd.  You called my parent's home, and they gave you the number of our apartment. 

You and I spent the weekend making up for lost time, re-kindling what we had lost.  We cried when the weekend came to an end, and you had to return to Meredith Manor School of Horsemanship, (now called Meredith Manor Equestrian Center) in Waverly, West Virginia.

We made promises to write and call, which we did.  I came to watch your graduation.  Was it then I asked you to marry me?  You went back to Dayton, and I returned to Oak Pak, with the promise that you would come back to Oak Park as soon as possible.

You did return, and we spent as much time together as possible.  You acquired a job at Illinois Institute of Technology Research Center, and took a room at the Carlton Motor Inn.  Shortly after you took the room, we drifted apart.  Later, you worked in Sears Tower, tending plants for Tropical Plant Rentals.

I don't know if someone else had come in your life, or the fatal illness of my father took prevented me from paying enough attention.  Whatever the reason, I am sorry.

So much has happened in the intervening years, but I haven't forgotten you.  I am almost finished writing a book about that time, and a possible outcome.  If by chance, Anne, you find this page, or if you know of Anne, please contact me at mailto:jmstern1 at yahoo.com

Warmest thoughts, always,

Mitch Stern