This is the self-told story of the improbable marriage, of a fiercely independent, morally committed woman and an equally committed man of loving wisdom. Their lives spanned every decade of twentieth century America. Charlotte grew up in the homesteading, fundamentalist culture of small town Oregon and Idaho to become one of the first women to attend Yale Divinity School. She had a thirst for knowledge in support of an intuitively just, kind and constructive way of life in the competitive, self-oriented culture of modern America. D.J. grew up in a gentler, liberal Protestant culture and started life as a Virginia Tech engineer. Disillusioned by two years in the competitive, hostile management training atmosphere of a Pontiac car factory, he became the first of his family to seek graduate education, also at Yale Divinity School. He believed that a rational life of goodwill could resolve most human conflicts. He entered Yale in quest of factual support for that belief. Both felt a mission to share with the next generation the knowledge they gained in the course of their studies. They met their first day in New Haven. For D.J. it was love at first sight. For Charlotte it took "longer to gel," but by her graduation, two years later, their love was mutual. She received her master's degree and departed for California to become director of YWCA at a college in Pasadena. D.J. continued work toward his PhD in New Haven. Their letters recount experiences of the next two years --- most vividly, the hopes and fears in a deep loving relationship stressed by separation, great distance and differences in temperament. Neither doubted the other's love, and D.J. understood the need to spread her wings professionally. But he could not comprehend how she did not feel the same aching urgency to reunite as he. He was confused and increasingly distressed that she would not commit to marry once her work in Pasadena was completed. For her it was more complicated. She loved him deeply, but her love had come slowly, and she was not as certain as he that it would be the same for either of them after two years apart. She feared making a lifelong commitment only to discover on reunion that it was not right. For him, marriage signaled the onset of real life, both of personal life and of his life mission. For her, the personal aspect was the same, but marriage for a woman then would also mean the end of full dedication to her life mission. She tried to persuade D.J. of the horrible risk in having to honor a premature commitment. She was puzzled, later concerned by his insistence that she decide at once. Concern turned to distress when he wrote that his admiration and love for her was the greatest for any woman he'd known, and would be so for life...but that he was "exhausted in body and spirit"..."could no longer muster the will" to pursue a future not certain to materialize. "You are yourself and I am myself." And though painful to accept, he recognized that the kind of union his soul craved was not to be. That message "sank right between the eyes." For days she was, "swinging between extreme emotions." It shook something from another recess of her tortured soul, because she next wrote of an issue, unacknowledged before, that now drove her to desperation...something for which she felt deeply guilty, but of a kind one feels equally intensely one should not have to feel guilty about.In his response came magic words, words that she did not know she needed to hear but that she recognized instantly. Beyond a simple, "I have your back", it was more like, "If and when you need it, I've got you covered on all sides. And when danger passes, I'll love sitting back and watching you do your unique, intuitive justice and kindness thing...your way... for the rest of our lives." So, of course she said, "Yes.", and of course they got married, and of course they went on to raise three fine sons and to pursue just, kind, and constructive lives...and left the world a better p