Native St. Louisans Ben and Jeanne (Shieber) Milder celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary last week. The couple actually became acquaintances nearly another quarter century earlier (their parents were best friends and were always together).

Bud (as he is known in the community) grew up on Goodfellow Avenue and attended Soldan High School, Washington University and Washington University Medical School.  Jeanne’s childhood home was in the University City Loop. She graduated from University City High School and went on to receive a master’s degree at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y.  Bud and Jeanne married in 1943, while Bud was serving as a military doctor at Chicago’s Billings Hospital.  After the war, they moved back to St. Louis, where Bud returned to the ophthalmology office he had joined briefly before the military. For 30-plus years they lived on Kingsbury, where they raised four sons while Jeanne performed and taught piano and Bud fixed eyes. In the 1960s Jeanne inaugurated the department of music at the newly established St. Louis Community College. In the 1970s Bud and Jeanne moved to Creve Coeur, and Bud took up a second career as a poet – he has published seven books, containing over 1,000 poems. Like their parents, Bud and Jeanne have been lifelong members at Congregation Shaare Emeth. They currently reside at The Gatesworth, where Bud continues to write and Jeanne continues to play piano. Last week, they celebrated their anniversary with all their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.