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Sweet on you: a story of Ole Valentines

By Marla Holt '88
February 2, 2007

Ask an Ole if he or she knows any Oles who are married to each other, and you'll likely get a long list. While most Oles can recall a dating adventure or two from their days on campus, it seems quite a few actually married their college sweetheart. In fact, there are 3,561 Oles currently married to another Ole. These couples comprise nearly a quarter of St. Olaf's 32,270 living alumni.

"We think Oles marrying Oles is a fairly unique phenomenon," says Rebecca Otten, principal gifts officer. There is no hard data comparing the number of alumni couples at St. Olaf with those at other small liberal arts colleges, but in conversations with staff members at other Minnesota private colleges, Otten has gotten the sense that St. Olaf ranks pretty high in the number of its graduates married to each other.

To celebrate these relationships, the Partners in Annual Giving office began sending Valentines to love-struck Oles in the late 1990s.

"The Valentines were a sweet and simple acknowledgment of a couple's relationship to each other and to the college," says Otten, who worked in the annual giving office at the time. The office invited married couples to design and write the Valentines to give the cards a more personal touch. Judith Saleen Swanson '57 and Steve Swanson '54 designed the first card in 1998, which featured a romantic poem written by Steve about love on the Hill. Designers of other cards included Don Bratland '87 and Beth Holmes '89 (whose card featured a punch-out floral bouquet), Nancy Young Whittlesey '79 and Charlie Whittlesey '79, and Maria Windh-Lind '89 and Dan Lind '89.

IT HAD TO BE FATE
Although all married Ole couples received the cards, they definitely were geared toward those whose relationship blossomed on the Hill. The Valentines offered such sweet sentiments as: "You went to St. Olaf, and there you found true love, / you both were so happy, it had to be fate. / You finished your schooling, but love wasn't fooling, / your true love from Olaf would be your life mate." (Sung to the tune of "Um! Yah! Yah!")

Jennifer Barsness Sorensen '88 and Troy Sorensen '88 fell in love as first-year students in the fall of 1984 and married three months after graduation. They were pleasantly surprised when they received their first Valentine. "We thought it was special that St. Olaf recognized our relationship, one that started and grew as we attended college," says Troy. "The card was a reminder that we grew up and grew together on the Hill." The couple framed their first St. Olaf Valentine and hung it outside their bedroom door as a symbol of the early days of their romance.

So what is it about St. Olaf that makes love bloom? Perhaps it's the long winters, but more likely it has to do with the St. Olaf community itself and its somewhat isolated existence in Northfield. "At a small residential college, your classmates easily become your social network," Otten says.

Sharing a common experience with 3,000 interesting people of your own age probably contributes as well. "The opportunity to know each other as students, friends, teammates, politically active people and people of faith -- in other words, as whole human beings -- makes this an attractive place to start lifelong relationships, romantic or otherwise," says Mary Carlsen '79, associate professor of social work at St. Olaf. She and her husband, Peter Dahlen '79, were good friends in college but didn't date until they'd been away from campus for several years.

The college no longer sends paper Valentines to Ole couples, but staff members who work with alumni still believe it's important to recognize these unique couples. "We received a lot of positive response to the Valentines," says Otten. "After the first ones were sent, we heard a lot of anecdotes about how people met, their first dates and their weddings. It was very sweet." The sentiment remains the same -- to celebrate the love that often grows between two people who share the common experience of being an Ole. Happy Valentine's Day!

Contact David Gonnerman at 507-786-3315 or gonnermd@stolaf.edu.