Volume 8, Number 4, 1999


Recipe for a marriage

Albert V. Krewatch, '25EG, '29M/EG, and his wife, Pattie, who recently celebrated their 71st wedding anniversary in Seaford, Del., say their long and happy marriage is based on mutual trust, shared household chores and the capacity to kiss and make up after an argument. Krewatch, who was professor of agricultural engineering at the University of Maryland from 1929 to 1965, served as a rural electrification specialist for the Cooperative Extension Service. In the 1940s, he and his wife traveled to every state as part of a group that developed electricity safety tips to be distributed to rural households through 4-H clubs. In 1965, he was invited to lecture in Poland at a 63-country International Trade Fair to which the U.S. shipped a wide variety of electrical equipment for home, business and farm use. "Some 9,860 people visited our electrical exhibits," says Krewatch, who learned enough Polish phrases to train demonstrators. His wife, who studied nursing at the Homeopathic Hospital in Wilmington, Del., while Krewatch was an instructor in electrical engineering at UD, later became a private-duty nurse. The couple, who retired to Seaford in the mid '60s, moved to the Methodist Manor House in 1993. "We always thought that it is very important for a married couple to work together," says Pattie. "We always did yard work together, and he always helped me with my freezing."