ROSE NOLEN: A strong community essential to a quality life

I remember that it was during those years when we spent long, leisurely summer afternoons sitting in the porch swing crocheting afghans when my mother made a statement that startled me and made me drop my crochet hook. We were talking about friends who had grown up in the community, known each other all of their lives, ultimately married and had recently welcomed their third grandchild into the family. My mother commented that it was through knowing people like this family that she came to realize there are good aspects to arranged marriages.