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Badger Sweethearts Celebrate 70th Wedding Anniversary: Helen and Paul LaRue

Helen Finnegan ’46, JD’48 and Paul LaRue ’47, JD’49 celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary on July 20, 2016. The two met while students at UW-Madison, and though they spent years apart when World War II took Paul to the front lines in Europe, they were married upon his return to Madison, holding a ceremony at St. Paul’s University Chapel on State Street and a reception at the Alpha Phi sorority house on Langdon Street. They even had to collect sugar coupons from friends and family to make their wedding cake.

They had their first of three children, a boy, in Madison, then work took them to Washington, D.C., where they welcomed two daughters before settling in the Chicago suburbs. One of those daughters had a daughter of her own (me!), Kate Hogan 05, who graduated from UW-Madison with a BA in journalism and mass communication and married her own Badger sweetheart, Josh Berger ’06, at St. Paul’s University Chapel on July 19, 2014.

Helen and Paul are still avid Badger fans, never missing a football game (unless they’re night games that start after their bedtime!) and proudly telling family and friends stories from their years in Madison. When toasting their 70th with family and friends in Park Ridge, Illinois, they of course had to don their favorite colors: cardinal and white!

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