High School romance rekindles

Many years ago this year's Express Valentine's story began in Grand Island. Janice (Foulk) Dangler was 14 and Rob Green was 17 when they met while participating in a production called, "I Remember MaMa." Originally it was a 1948 black and white movie starring Irene Dunn, Cedric Hardwick and Philip Dorn.

Janice and Rob seemed to like each other but with the age difference it was difficult to be a couple. They remained casual friends until Janice was 16 and Rob was 19. They then began to date.

However, Rob left Grand Island to serve six years in the Navy. Both are from families with a tradition of serving our country.

They found long distance communication made staying in touch with each other increasingly difficult. Communication broke down and Janice met and married Craig Dangler. They were married for 42 years until Craig died on Feb. 13, 2020, following a long illness. Janice and her family mourned his departure.

During the 42 years together, the Danglers raised three sons in Sioux City. Janice also has six grandchildren.

Rob also married and has one grown daughter who lives in Portland.

After his honorable discharge, Rob worked in grocery warehouses in California and Oregon. With the encouragement of his sister, Cindy, who was a registered nurse, Rob decided to become a nurse when he was 44 years old. Rob worked as an LPN for 12 years in county hospitals and also at the Norfolk Regional Center before beginning work at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Grand Island. Cindy was taken over by Alzheimer's and died at the age of 68. Rob felt blessed to have been with Cindy for the last couple of months of her life. But she died within 3 weeks of his return to Grand Island. The heartache was real.

Janice had suffered the loss of her father in 2019, husband and brother 2020 and another brother years before.

After the loss of his sister, Cindy, Rob shared his loss on a social media web site. Janice saw his post and reached out to him to share her condolences and understanding. After a few weeks of reconnecting and telephone conversations, they decided to meet for coffee the day before Thanksgiving 2021.

After the grief of recent years, both Rob and Janice realize life is too short for long engagements and the formalities that are common for most are not necessarily what they want. They will be married next month at the United Methodist Church. Her youngest son will walk down the isle with her to give her away.

Rob and Janice plan to be part of the Superior community's activities. Janice works for a major industry from home. They love working outdoors and gardening. They plan to volunteer at church. Rob has umpired baseball games and hopes to do that here too. The reason they picked Superior to be their home is because Rob was best friends with the late Conel Busher. Conel cooked for the Elks and VFW until he was too sick to do so. Rob came to Superior to visit Conel and fell in love with the Superior Community.

Janice and Rob are thankful to have found each other and anticipate living happy lives again. They feel quite fortunate to have found each other. After a lifetime of marriage and raising families, Janice Dangler and Rob Green are reunited.