Dorothy and Bill

Angelica Wilson
Nov 4 · 2 min read

The One Where She Met Him

HASBROUCK HEIGHTS, NJ 10/23/2019 PORTRAIT: Dorothy Leonard smiles for the camera in her home in Hasbrouck Heights on a Wednesday night. -Photo by Angelica Wilson / JOUR180

Dorothy Leonard, 81, of Hasbrouck Heights, NJ recalls of the day she met her husband Clyde “Bill” Leonard back in the summer of 1958. Dorothy was 19 years old at her home in Washington Heights, NY on a warm Sunday in June 1958. Her best friend Rosie had come over and the two decided to drive over the George Washington Bridge in Dorothy’s father’s car to the Palisades Amusement Park in Cliffside Park, NJ. The girls spent the day cooling off by the park’s saltwater pool, which was the world’s largest outdoor saltwater pool at the time.

As Dorothy floated in the pool on a tube for sometime, she had drifted into deeper water when a stranger swam under and flipped her over frightening her and sending her into the deep water. All of the sudden a boy had grabbed her and pulled her off to the side into shallow water. He said to her, “I just saved your life so now you owe me a date.” Dorothy was taken back at and thought this guy could have been the one to flip her in the first place, but after a little convincing she spent the rest of the day chatting with her suspicious hero, Bill. At the end of the day Bill had asked her to join him and his friends the upcoming Saturday to a beach party at Jones Beach, which she agreed to and went. Conversation between the two flowed so easily and Dorothy recalls feeling like she had known him forever.

From there life went on rather quickly. They met in June 1958, were engaged in October of 1958, and married March 29, 1959. The two went on to have three children, six grandchildren, and one great-grandchild over their 59-year-long marriage. Bill passed away from pancreatic cancer in November of 2018 and Dorothy finds herself very lucky to have spent her life with a man who laughed so much and made everybody smile.

    Angelica Wilson

    Written by

    Junior Television & Digital Media Major paving my own journey.

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