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Community Corner
A West Granby couple shares their unique love story.
Neighbor
|Updated Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 5:15 pm ET
For Put and Nannie Brown, the forces of nature couldn’t keep them apart. Here’s their story of how they found love against all odds.
On July 30th 1964, Put Brown was at a party at a beach club in Newport Rhode Island, as a member of the crew of one of the boats competing for the The America’s Cup, when in walked Nannie Wright Talbot.
“I saw this fascinating girl, who was being escorted around by the English crew members” and “I said to myself, I’m going to marry her,” Put admitted. He tried not to obviously stare at her, but he kept his sights on her the whole night.
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One attempt involved Put at the club’s swimming pool, where a crew member told him to wait there by the pool’s edge and he would bring Nannie over and they could finally talk.
As soon as his friend left, Put jumped into the pool and started swimming.
Nannie posed the question “I never thought about it until now, but were you hoping to display your swimming prowess?”
“No, I was just hiding,” Put replied.
Another time, Put saw Nannie confidently walking down the dock towards him with her father and uncle, when he dodged her once again by hiding in the middle of the boat.
“She was too intriguing, too beautiful, I couldn’t talk to her,”Put said.
By the end of the summer, Nannie had only heard about Put, “A sweet boy who didn’t have a girlfriend and was so shy,” she shared.
At that point, the competition was narrowed down to two teams, ironically they were, the English, Sovereign Rose and the American, Constellation team.
The teams had a couple of weeks respite before the competition was to start and Put went to visit his Grandmother in Martha’s Vineyard.
To kick off the competition, there was an old world tradition called the , “English Speaking Union Ball,” where the challenger honored the defender and this Ball would take place when he returned to Newport.
“Out of the blue, I decided to call Nannie while at my Grandmother’s, I asked her if she had a date for the Ball, and she said no, and then I asked her if she would go with me,” Put stated.
“I said yes, I kind of walked into that, but by then I had heard about him, I remember thinking he doesn’t even have a date, what’s wrong with him?” Nannie said.
Nannie was now committed to going to the Ball with Put, much to Bertie’s chagrin. Bertie had assumed that she was going with him, even though he hadn’t officially asked Nannie.
When Put picked up Nannie, they were officially meeting for the first time, he remembers that she wore a black dress with roses on it and was beautiful. And she remembers how handsome he looked in his white dinner jacket.
They pulled up to the Breakers, Vanderbilt Mansion in the Constellation Sail truck that Put had borrowed from the crew. As they came through the portico, they were met by the media. The event was being covered by The Wide World of Sports.
As Put escorted Nannie to the top of the stairs, he said “That was just magnificent, how did you do that so calmly, with all these cameras?”
Put admitted that he never even saw the cameras, he was so excited to be escorting her to the Ball.
Like a boat getting buffeted by the crashing waves, Put was discouraged by the English crew at the Ball to continue his date with Nannie. Bertie eventually stole Nannie away for awhile.
“She was away for 45 minutes and I thought, that was it, she was whisked away by the competitor,” Put explained.
But after the 45 minutes, Nannie returned tearful and Put found out that Bertie had actually proposed to her. She of course said no to him.
Put pointed out that if any one of those questions that he or Bertie asked Nannie, had been answered differently, Put and Nannie may have never been together.
Soon after, The America’s Cup competition was held and the American team won. But Put had won more than that, he had won the love of Nannie Wright Talbot and he couldn’t have been more pleased.
The summer ended and the couple returned to their respective colleges and they continued dating. After 2 years Put proposed to Nannie on the shores of Lake Michigan.
After almost 45 years of marriage what keeps this couple happy?
“At our wedding, my father-in-law said in his speech , the key to a good marriage is the 60/40 rule, everybody thinks marriage is 50/50, but it’s not. Each party should assume that it’s your job to give more than you get, you’ll always be happy if you follow that,” Put said.
Nannie also added, “You can’t pick the flowers unless you weed the garden, you have to work on it, you have to be there and pay attention in your marriage. Every day we wake up and immediately start talking to each other, we are happy to be together.”