SCHWANTES 50th

Carlos and Mary Schwantes celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary with family on Oct. 28, 2016, in White Sulphur Springs, W.V., at the historic Greenbrier Hotel. The celebration was a little later than their actual wedding anniversary of Sept. 4 so their children living in Singapore could return to the U.S.

Carlos Arnaldo Schwantes met Mary Dassenko at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Mich., where Carlos was studying history and Mary was studying home economics education. They married two years later in Nevada, Iowa, on Sept. 4, 1966.

Their careers took them first to Ann Arbor, Mich., for graduate school, where Carlos earned a Doctor of Philosophy and Mary a master’s degree in science, and later to Walla Walla University, where they both taught between 1969 and 1984. Both their sons were born while the couple lived in College Place, Wash.

After 14 years of teaching at Walla Walla, the pair moved to Moscow, Idaho, and the University of Idaho, where Carlos had an active research and writing phase for 19 years. Mary started the first nutrition counseling service for University of Idaho students and staff and organized campus and community health fairs.

Their most recent move was to Missouri, where Carlos served as the first St. Louis Mercantile Library Endowed Professor of History at the University of Missouri–St. Louis from 2001 until May 2016. His teaching career spanned exactly 50 years.

Now retired, they travel the world and enjoy spending time with their granddaughter. The Schwantes family includes Benjamin and Elizabeth Schwantes and their daughter, Magdalena, of Baltimore, Md.; and Matthew and Nadira Schwantes of Singapore.