DAYS OF GOLD

Joe and Janet attended Purdue at a time when college campuses around the country bustled with students—including an increased number of women—eager to take advantage of postwar optimism, changing societal attitudes, and an economic boom. While Janet studied home economics, Joe rode this wave of progress by focusing on engineering.

“Engineers were in particularly high demand back then, and Purdue was the place to be if you wanted to get into that,” Joe says. “Most engineers had 20 to 22 class hours each semester, then they had to get a job or take 10 hours of classes in the summer. It was hard, but also fun. On the weekends, I would pick Janet up in my car and we would drive down to Triple XXX or, after she turned 21, go to Harry’s Chocolate Shop. Those are probably the only places that are still there!”

One of Joe’s favorite Purdue memories is of a prank he pulled involving a sorority house, a possum, and the police.

“My roommate Jim Dalton (ABE’52) and I were going to see a movie, and we saw this possum playing dead by the road,” he says. “Jim said we should grab that possum and throw it in the front door of the Phi Mu sorority house. So, we did it. When we came back from the movie, some of the other guys were telling us about all the excitement we had missed—there was an animal in the Phi Mu house, and they called the police. Well, we didn’t tell anybody about what we had done.”

After graduation, Joe took a job with Caterpillar in Peoria, Illinois—but he was soon called up into the U.S. Air Force, which stationed him in San Antonio, Texas. Joe served two years there before returning to Peoria and Caterpillar, where he worked until he retired. Janet followed Joe after her graduation, first to Texas and then to Peoria, and became a substitute schoolteacher as well as a teacher for the homebound.

Joe, who grew up on a farm in Arcadia, Indiana, was hired by Caterpillar based on his Purdue education as well as his expertise in farm equipment. He worked primarily as a technical writer and editor, but his responsibilities included travel that took him far from the quiet prairies of Illinois. He also took advantage of free “space available” flights available to him as a member of the Air National Guard. He eventually retired as a lieutenant colonel.

Janet often joined Joe on his far-flung adventures.

 “There was always something to do when we were at Purdue—always something fun—and that continued after we were married,” Janet says. “Joe went everywhere, from the Arctic to Antarctica, and I went on a lot of those trips. Flying with the Air Force cost us almost nothing, and it made for a very exciting life.”

Ever since Joe and Janet’s first meeting over watermelon, Jane has been part of their story.

As is often the case with identical twins, Janet and Jane, who died in 2007, were very close. They began attending Purdue at the same time. They lived together during their first year on campus. They went on double dates together and sometimes had fun with that by playing twin-sister tricks on their companions.

“It was 99 miles from our front door in Gary to Purdue—our mother wouldn’t let us go any farther away than that, and we had to go together,” Janet says. “Jane and I were always together, and we were always having fun. During double dates, we would switch positions halfway through, just for fun, and the guys never knew. That really made us laugh.”

It is also a point of fact that Jane, and not Janet, was the first Marquardt sister to go on a date with Joe.

“Joe struck something up with Jane first, and they went out once,” Janet says. “Jane wasn’t available later because she was going home that weekend, but she had tickets to a water show on campus. She told Joe, ‘Call my sister because I know she’s not busy.’ Well, he called me—and he never called her again. He married me. Now, Joe sometimes says he married the wrong twin!”

As for advice she might have for anyone hoping to replicate the happy life she built with Joe, Janet says, “Keep it simple. I think you need to be able to laugh at yourself. A lot of things go haywire—that’s life. You just have to say, ‘Well, we’ll fix what we can and get help if we need it.’ Then, you just go forward—do your best and keep going!”

Joe and Janet have lived near Peoria since January 1, 1955, and Joe still owns the farm near Arcadia. They have two children, four grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

“We’re still together because we’ve always loved each other and enjoyed the life we have,” Joe says. “We make sure we’re always good to one another—and we do a lot of apologizing.”