FOF Elizabeth Larson and Steve Steele met in Minneapolis in their 20s and dated briefly. Although the two broke up and lived miles apart (Elizabeth moved to Denver and Steve stayed in Minneapolis), they remained best friends for almost 20 years. After losing touch for 13 years, they reunited in 2009 and married in 2010, both were age 52. Read their heart-warming love story, below:
(Waterproof mascara and tissues recommended!)
In 1986, 28-year-old Elizabeth Steele was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia, a particularly aggressive form of cancer. She underwent rounds of unsuccessful treatment. Defeated, Elizabeth decided to leave her life in Denver and move home to be with her family in Wisconsin.
Her best friend Steve (living in Minneapolis), flew to Denver and drove a terrified Elizabeth home to Wisconsin. “Despite the gravity of the situation, we had a grand time,” says Elizabeth. A few months later, as a last resort, Elizabeth opted for a bone marrow transplant, a new and extremely risky procedure at the time. “The odds of survival weren’t in my favor,” says Elizabeth.” Again, Steve flew from Minneapolis to be by her side. He spent the weekend with Elizabeth, which she thought might be her last. “[It was] a last hurrah,” she says.
Elizabeth survived the treatment (“a miracle,” she says) and at that point she knew Steve was more than her best friend. He was her true love. Steve knew it also, and Elizabeth moved to Minneapolis, the two married and lived happily ever after…
Wait, not so fast. Life is more complicated that that… After Elizabeth’s treatment, she did move to Minneapolis to be with Steve. They tried to make it work but it was the wrong place and the wrong time. “The job market [in Minneapolis] was bleak, so I applied for and was offered a job back in Wisconsin. I accepted it and moved.”
More distance, another failed romance… but again, Elizabeth and Steve remained friends. Elizabeth became engaged to another man. Her fiancee, jealous of Elizabeth’s friendship with Steve, urged her to cut off communication with him. They lost touch for 13 years.
In 1996, Elizabeth terminated her engagement. “[It was] for many practical and serious reasons,” says Elizabeth. “But the greatest one was that he wasn’t Steve.” Still wondering about his whereabouts, Elizabeth searched for Steve to no avail.
Then in 2009, Elizabeth found a man’s profile on Facebook, she believed could be him. “It sounded like his humor, so I took a chance and asked him to be friends,” said Elizabeth. “Within minutes, he responded: ‘I had to hit the “accept” button because they did not have a “you bet your ass button!”‘” “I was certain he was married with kids,” she says.
He wasn’t. And after a few visits, getting to know one another again, Steve told Elizabeth that his past relationships had always been missing something. They didn’t measure up to his relationship with her. Elizabeth told Steve she felt the same way.
“I never believed in a million years that I would marry the man I loved and dreamed of for most of my life,” says Elizabeth. The two had a small wedding celebration in 2010. “I look at my wedding ring and still can’t believe it. Steve has commented on how well I sign my new name (Elizabeth Larson Steele). I tell him that I’ve been practicing it for decades!”
FOFs Leslie Saunders, Marquita Olive and Cynthia Anzaldua are longtime friends with a passion for helping children. This year they launched KitchenKids!, an “edu-tainment” resource for children ages 5-12, that promotes knowledge, self-esteem, healthy eating and relationship building. The women all credit their friendship for keeping them successful, strong and sane through the tumultuous FOF years. Here they describe how one great friendship can be an FOF’s greatest asset.
How did the three of you become friends?
Leslie: I guess I’m the central piece here. My career (management consulting) has afforded me the opportunity to move to several different communities. I met Cynthia in 1986, when I moved to Dallas. We became friends immediately. Two cities later, my career moved me to Memphis, where I met Marquita in 1996. We also became fast friends, and when I introduced the two of them, it was like the three amigas.
What draws the three of you together so tightly?
Cynthia: I think a love of young people has kept us young, and has been the driving force in our friendship. I’m a 31-year veteran art teacher. Leslie used to work for Girl Scouts of America. Marquita has a 12-year old daughter, Grace, who’s been growing up right in front of us as we work together. It’s a love for children, and helping children – that commitment.
You all enjoy mentoring young people.
Cynthia: Exactly.
Marquita: Leslie and Cynthia are the big sisters I never had. They have helped me to grow up, and to be a better mother. Leslie is my daughter’s godmother, and Cynthia is my daughter’s god-aunt, and we’re just one big happy family.
Leslie: I think one of the big pieces of glue that holds us all together is that we like to laugh. Whenever we are together, life becomes hilarious, even though we may be dealing with personal dramas. Over the years, we’ve had so many wonderful encounters together that when we get together, we spend half the time laughing about the crazy stuff that we’ve done in the past. Like Ethel and Lucy: ‘How did we get here again? And aren’t we glad that we’re all here together?’
Can you each describe how your friendships has helped you in life, though the years?
Leslie: These friendships helped ground me as my professional life took me from community to community. Sometimes it’s very difficult to get to know new people. As our friendships have matured, we’ve lost parents, and our lives have changed in many ways. But these are the same two sisters who hold my hand through it all.
Cynthia: I lost my father not long ago, and he was my world, and they have been here for me through thick and thin, through my depression, through everything I had to go through and they’ve made me a stronger person. They’ve made me appreciate life and friends, and friendship more. I know there’s nothing that I can’t tell them. I know that they’re always there for me. We speak to each other one to three times a day. We might start the conversation crying, and then we end up laughing.
Marquita: I’m going to use a quote from A Return To Love by Marianne Williamson: ‘Every encounter is a holy encounter.’ And that’s how I feel about Leslie and Cynthia. When I met them both, we had a spiritual connection, that, as a wordsmith myself, I can’t find the words to describe!
What gets the friendship through trying times?
Leslie: We’re able to be very honest with each other. And we don’t expect perfection. We expect honesty and truth and we know that none of us intentionally does anything to hurt the others. Even if it takes months for someone to say, ‘You know, you hurt my feelings last year, when you said such and such,’ we are still quick to apologize and explain ‘that’s not what I meant, and I need you to understand, because you are more than my friend, you really are my sister.’
Marquita: The three of us love each other unconditionally. There’s no competition here. There are no egos here. There’s just genuine love.
Cynthia: We realize it’s sometimes necessary to say something to one another that might be hurtful. But we’d all rather it come from us than from the outside.
Do you think that level of trust is something you can build, or does it have to be there originally?
Leslie: It’s both. We liked each other, and we wanted to be friends, but friendship has to be tested, nurtured, and well managed. Those are the things that you work on. Although the three of us have many things in common, we are three distinct individuals, with unique talents, interests and experiences, and we don’t try to outdo each other or compete. That keeps our friendship fresh. There are times when two of us will experience something, and we’ll say, ’Oh Lord, we better call so-and-so and get her take on this! We know she’s gonna have something hilarious to say about this.’
Marquita: I follow Dr. Wayne Dyer on Twitter. And the other day, he said, ‘Your friends are God’s way of apologizing for your family.’ That’s how I look at these two ladies. They are my family. They are not relatives.
Images: Babble, Shockya, StyleFrizz, Famous People Info, Washingtonian, Fused Film, WBR.com, 50 Cent Base, Babble, BET
Sources: Fox News, MSNBC, MSN.com, CBS News, Jet Magazine, Woman’s Day, New York Daily News, The Sun, Marie Claire, The Daily Mail, New York Magazine
You swapped clothes, stayed up all night sharing secrets, and she’s the only one who knew about your hunky high school crush… But now, your childhood best friend is nowhere to be found. Life sped forward, and she got left behind on Memory Lane. FOF Private Investigator Norma Tillman and FOF Online Investigation Specialist Darlene Adams share surefire secrets to tracking her down:
Your search should begin where the information about your friend ended. “If you are looking for a friend you graduated with in Hunstville, Alabama, begin your search in Huntsville, Alabama,” says Norma. “Most libraries have Suburban or City Directories–annual publications listing everyone who lives in a given town.” If you compare year to year, you can figure out when someone moved away. If you can’t get to that specific library…”often, a reference librarian can give you this information by phone or e-mail,” says Norma.
Search Facebook…but not how you think! “Social networks have made it easier to find people,” says Darlene, but that doesn’t mean you can plug in any name and find a match. If your searches have come up empty, Norma recommends trying this: “Let’s say you knew the friend from camp but can’t find her on Facebook. Find other friends from camp and search their friends. Search a few friends removed.” Still no luck? “Send one a message to see if they have any idea about your friend’s whereabouts.”
It may sound morbid, but obituaries can bring new life to your search. “An obituary from someone in your friend’s family may provide you with clues to locate her,” says Darlene. “Ancestry.com has a good collection of obituaries, as well as birth, marriage and military records,” says Norma.
Search free websites and online directories. “There are a lot of websites that will give you some information, hoping you will pay for more,” says Darlene. “You should never pay for these sites, most information can be pieced together for free.” Darlene’s favorite free sites for people searching: Peoplefinder.com, MemoryLane.com (previously Classmates.com), WhitePages.com, Pipl.com, ZabaSearch.com
Contact school alumni associations. “If you went to school with this friend or know where she went to school, alumni associations can be very helpful,” says Norma. “See if you can get contact information for the alumni coordinator who may have more information about her.”
Federal and State Public Records – “There are all sorts of public records available at the city, state and federal levels,” says Norma.”But public records can be tough. Especially if you are looking for a record from a state where you are not a resident,” warns Darlene, who recommends brbpub.com, an online aggregator of public records. Norma recommends putting the pressure on federal agencies with FOIA (The Freedom of Information Act).
About the Experts
FOF Norma Tillman is a 72-year-old private investigator from Nashville, TN. She has found more than 1,000 missing persons in her career. She’s also the author of Private Investigation 101, How To Find Almost Anyone, Anywhere, The Man With the Turquoise Eyes and other True Stories of a Private Eye’s Search for Missing Persons, and The Adoption Searcher’s Handbook. She has been called on to locate missing people by Oprah, Nancy Grace, producers at The View, CNN, NBC and hundreds of other national and local television hosts, shows and stations.
FOF Darlene Adams is a 53-year-old specialist in online investigations and founder of E-infoseek, a research company dedicated to supporting private investigators and the legal community. She is a co-author of Romantic Deception: The Six Signs He’s Lying and a member of the High Technology Crime Investigation Association (HTCIA), Infra-Gard, and Female Legal & Investigative Professionals (FLIP).
FOFs Mary Valentine and Cara Rowe Groenings share a very close friendship and a very preppy wardrobe. Cara (right) works for the Ralph Lauren store in Greenwich, CT, and Mary (left) is Cara’s client and friend. (Mary is also the daughter of former Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca and the wife of former Mets manager Bobby Valentine). FOF spotted the pair outside the Ralph Lauren show wearing–you guessed it–head-to-toe Ralph Lauren.
Names: Mary Valentine (left) and Cara Groenings (right)
How would you describe your style?
Cara: Tweed, casual and elegant.
Mary: Connecticut…. Comfortable, wearable, stylish.
You guys do look comfortable.
Mary: We are not victims of heels today.
How long does it take you both to get dressed in the morning?
Cara: It depends…
Mary: Are we counting makeup or not?
Let’s say, without makeup…
Mary: When you have a closet full of wonderful Ralph Lauren clothes you can mix and match in five minutes.
Cara: I’d say without makeup, five minutes. Longer, if you have a blouse with, like, 25 buttons.
On Cara and Mary:
Ralph Lauren (all items)
