Robert M. Sterling and Florence M. O’Mara met while students at Panzer College of Physical Education & Hygiene in East Orange, NJ.
As he recalled it, they were introduced outside the gates of the school on the day he enrolled at Panzer just before the spring semester of 1938 was to begin.
Bob and Florence were the same age and had been born a week apart (he on August 6, 1918; she on August 13, 1918). They’d graduated from their respective high schools in 1936.
Early on in their courtship, Bob would walk Florence to the train station in the Ampere section of East Orange after classes in the afternoon. There, she got a train back to her parents’ home in Millburn.
Where they had dates, he was told to have her home by 11pm.
After graduating Panzer in June 1940, Florence took a job teaching and coaching at Mount St. Joseph’s Academy and Chestnut Hill College in Germantown, PA.
Bob enlisted in the service on February 3, 1942, the month after he graduated college and within a couple of months of the United States entering World War II.
Bob formally proposed to Florence in a letter he wrote her in June 1943 while he was with the Aviation Cadet Physical Fitness Program at the USAF primary flight school in Jackson, TN.
He recalled the base was still under construction at the time and that he was living in rented room in the attic of a private home.
By that time, Bob had been commissioned as an officer (second lieutenant) and felt only then would he have the wherewithal to support his wife in a proper way.
Two or three days later, Florence wrote back accepting the proposal.
The acceptance prompted Bob to ask for and get a 15-day leave to return home to New Jersey and get married.
One of the first things he and Florence did was sit down with her parents at their home at 400 Millburn Ave. in Millburn, NJ, and tell them of their plans. They were both 25 at the time.
Because he felt it would be easier on her parents financially, Bob suggested the reception be simple and held in their backyard. For food and drink, they would have a half-keg of beer, a tub of iced soda and some finger food.
After informing her parents of their intentions, Bob and Florence made an appointment at St. Rose of Lima Church in nearby Short Hills and sat down with Father James J. Coyle the following day to discuss the marriage details.
The meeting concluded with Bob and Florence setting a wedding date that fell within his 15-day leave: the afternoon of June 27th, a Sunday.
The day after the wedding, they got on a train at Newark’s Penn Station and headed to the base in Jackson.
At first, the couple lived in the rented attic room but soon moved to larger quarters.
It was the beginning of a marriage that lasted almost 61 years and produced three children – Robert Jr., Sally, and Guy Sterling.
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Among those attending the wedding were:
- Praxeda Sterling Deats, Bob’s mother
- Beulah Sterling, Bob’s sister
- Austin Deats, Bob’s stepbrother
- Kenneth Milsop, Bob’s friend from Newark and his best man
- Al Jacoby, Bob’s friend from Newark
- Frank Schiller, a Newark butcher who loaned Bob the money to go to college
- Joseph and Teresa O’Mara, Florence’s parents
- Florence’s Aunt Florence and her family
- Florence’s Aunt Marie and her family
- Mary Josephine O’Mara, Florence’s younger sister
- Margaret O’Mara, Florence’s oldest sister and her maid of honor
(L to R) Maid of honor with groom’s mother 
Bob arriving at church 
Bob’s brother Ted, at right 
Friends celebrating newlyweds 
Ted Deats, right at beer keg
Sterling Family History 