March 3

Was There a Guiding Hand?


When I was a boy growing up in Takoma Park, Md., our coal came on a horse-drawn wagon from Griffith and Perry in Silver Spring. I would watch the men shovel coal into a chute into our basement.

In those days everyone who could sent their children to the Washington, D.C., schools, which were among the best in the country. I followed my older sister to Central High. My fraternity's lunch table was directly across the center aisle from the Beta Mu sorority. By my senior year, I was dating several of its members. Beta Mu had a new pledge who we noted was very pretty, but we did not pay much attention to her. Her name, I found out later, was Mary Ann Griffith.

After two years at John Carroll University in Cleveland with all boys and no dates, I transferred to the University of Maryland, which had many girls. I started paying a lot of attention to the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority house.

One night in the fall of my senior year when I brought my date back to the house, one of the sisters was sitting on the front steps crying. It was Mary Ann Griffith. After saying good night to my date, I asked Mary Ann if I could be of any help. I knew she was dating several guys named Bob – one of them was my fraternity brother. She said her boyfriend was in the hospital in Baltimore, and she wanted to go see him.

I had a car and offered to take her. We made a date. We went to Baltimore. Mary Ann saw her friend Bob. And we were married for 67 years.

George Kephart