Rose Gassner ’11 and Joe Grimm ’11, were freshmen when they met at Milner Library, unaware that their study session was a set-up by mutual friends.
“Here’s Rose studying chemistry and I’m bored so I’m doing a Where’s Waldo book,” Grimm said. “She hated me at first.”
The next night the group played snow-volleyball on the court located in the mini-Quad between their neighboring residence halls. Joe lived in Whitten and Rose in Barton.
“I let him borrow my gloves because it was freezing,” Gassner said, “and he goes to the side of the building and pees with them on. I couldn’t believe it! He wasn’t winning any points, but throughout the week we kept running into each other.”
“She still didn’t think I was the coolest guy in the world,” Grimm said.
Things took a happy turn through some unfortunate events for Joe on a group date at the Olive Garden. Falling on ice on the way into the restaurant, the whole group laughed at his expense, Joe included. Later, a server with eight ice waters tripped and spilled all of them onto Joe.
“I started cracking up,” he said. And that’s when Rose changed her mind.
“If a person can laugh at themselves, they must not be that bad,” said Gassner, who was a nursing major. “Being able to make jokes about himself was what made me give him a chance.”
“That was the first finals week of our college career,” said Grimm, who studied general finance. “We’ve been together ever since.”
Five years later, they married on December 8, 2012. Now living in Naperville, Rose is a nurse at Central DuPage Hospital and Joe is a financial representative at Premier Wealth Group. Both are thrilled for their upcoming anniversary, and remain grateful for many fond memories of their experiences together at Illinois State.
