Hair-raising Surprise
Bernie Levin was not expecting a particular letter to arrive in Germany when he was stationed there 1951. He also couldn't know the writer would become his wife.
"She sends me a letter: doesn't tell me how she gets my name," said Levin of Butler Township, who had been serving in the Army.
"She signs the letter 'Marilyn Blank,'" he said. "I thought somebody was pulling my chain."
Levin later learned a friend had recommended him as a pen pal to the former Marilyn Blank while home in New York on furlough.
So Bernie replied to the letter.
"He was a good letter writer: Otherwise I wouldn't have written him back," recalled Marilyn, who wrote to her husband for 14 months before meeting him in person.
The meeting occurred on Valentine's Day, albeit a little ahead of schedule.
Anxious to finally meet Marilyn, Bernie decided to surprise her by showing up near where she worked. He was traveling with two sisters, a brother-in-law and a friend, and the group decided to wait outside.
"I worked for a doctor. He wasn't in that morning," Marilyn said, explaining she had gone to work wearing big, round curlers in her hair."I went to the windows to close them, and there they are standing across the street — all lined up looking at me."It was funny. Really funny," she said."They all came to check me out. I guess I did pass."The Levins got married on Dec. 25, 1955, at the synagogue in Butler — mainly because the Levin family's roller rink was closed for the holiday and Bernie didn't have to work."That's our story," Bernie said."We've been married 54 years, with three children and five grandchildren."
