The story, as told to Cindy and Peter by Mimi (supported by ticket stubs and notes from both Mimi and Willy) is as follows.
Willy attended a meeting with the Controlled Thermonuclear Research Advisory Committee in Los Alamos, New Mexico in early August, 1966. His train ticket shows that he travelled from Pasadena through Lamy to Santa Fe on August 4th and 5th and back on August 6th and 7th.
Mimi was on the same train. She had been in the southwest to visit family: Uncle Will, Aunt Madge, Cousin Gretchen. We told us she took the train because airplane tickets were unavailable as a result of an airline strike that summer.
They sat near each other and started a conversation on the train. According to Mimi, she was interested because he looked interesting. Willy and Mimi both loved trains. One of the things they talked about was the E. Nesbit book The Railway Children which Mimi and Nina had read as kids and then got for Peter, Joan and Margaret. They apparently also had a meal together on the train.
They became friends and often travelled together or met at the destination when he made trips to give talks or participate in conferences. He proposed on February 25, 1989 and they were married in Pasadena in December of 1989.
In her wallet, Mimi kept the crumbling ticket stub:
along with a faded photo of him:
and a scrap of paper that said ‘The Railway Children. Absolute Tops. Tell Everyone’. (Note: ‘absolute tops’ was a classic Mimi phrase of praise.)
