I Married My College Roommate's Fiance

I know what you are thinking -- you dog you! But it isn’t quite the way you may have thought.

Dave Benson, Ann Edwards, and myself were a part of the teen group in Kansas City, Missouri that attended First Church of the Nazarene. All three of us happened to attend Southeast High School also. As I stated before, I wasn’t into girls at that time and only dated two during my three years in Kansas City which didn't include Ann. She told her mother on the day we met that “he is the man I’m going to marry”! She was 14 years old and I was 15 at the time.

Since I wasn’t interested in girls during high school, Ann had to go another direction. She and Dave started dating and were boyfriend/girlfriend before Dave left for Pasadena Nazarene College in Pasadena, California in 1951. At this time Ann was a junior in high school. Most of the kids from our church attended Bethany Peniel Nazarene College (now Southern Nazarene University) in Bethany, Oklahoma as this college served our district in the Nazarene denomination.

I graduated in 1952 and decided to go to Pasadena Nazarene College. Dave asked me to be his roommate. He and Ann became engaged and off to college the guys went leaving Ann to her senior year of high school. My first year of college I had my brother’s 1939 Pontiac to use as he was overseas in the Navy. I had one date to a party held at a local church. That was it on dating for me.

David Benson - my roommate for three years in college

Dave had two pictures of Ann and we each had a dresser to put them on. So I got used to seeing her picture daily! At the end of the school year 1953, Dave and Ann broke their engagement. This was awkward for Ann as she had applied and been accepted at Pasadena Nazarene College. She decided to attend there anyway instead of the school in Bethany, Oklahoma.

Dave and I rented a room a block off campus my second year. Ann was living in the girls dorm on campus. That year Dave had a car and I didn’t. So I got to borrow his car when needed. Not to date - but just errands that I needed to do. Dave and I were roommates for three years.

Since Ann and I were friends from the same city, high school, neighborhood (she lived one and a half blocks from me) and church, I told her that if she didn’t have a date on Friday nights, maybe we would do something as friends. Funny, how she didn’t have many dates on Friday nights. So we would do things together over the weekend like miniature golf, visiting sights around Southern California, going up to the mountains for a couple of hours, etc. I bought a 1947 Plymouth before my junior year so we had wheels when we needed to go somewhere.

Dick Moore & Ann Edwards on a mountain trip on a Sunday 1954

Dick Moore, Ann Edwards, and college friend, Dave Cole - Mt .Baldy 1954

As you can imagine, this blossomed into going steady and then engagement for our wedding between my junior and senior year of college.

My favorite picture of Ann - going steady 2-21-54

No - I didn’t steal my college roommate’s fiancé. He had moved on leaving me to step in to find my life’s companion. 53 years and counting now! Thanks, Dave!