Illini Couple: Competing Memories
Lou and Ellie Gross returned to Allen Hall to recreate a snapshot from their courting days. Ellie recalls that Lou’s car and a date at the local Dog n Suds “did impress,” while Lou remembers it as “a great time in our lives.” (Image courtesy of Lou and Ellie Gross)
As to how they met, they give, er, rather different accounts.
Lou Gross, ’65 ENG, recalls his future wife clad in “this fluffy pinkish blouse or sweater” when he picked her up for their blind date. A junior in electrical engineering, he piloted her from Allen Hall to the cutting-edge computer lab where he worked. “I showed her the mainframe computers and the key punch machines,” he says. “Afterwards, I took her to Dog n Suds for a burger.”
Ellie Levine Gross, ’66 ED, remembers things differently. “I was not wearing a fluffy top,” she says, then a freshman. “And it was boring to go to a computer lab. Now, the Dog n Suds—that did impress. And the fact that he had a car was very appealing.” Thus, their romance began. Like Ellie, Lou was new to Champaign-Urbana, having commuted to the university’s Chicago Navy Pier campus for his first two years of study.
The car rides widened beyond Dog n Suds to other restaurants. Their romance became serious. Lou graduated and got a job far away, in St. Paul, Minn., working on computerized communications equipment for U.S. Navy ships. Ellie continued with her program in elementary education. Phone calls were so expensive, they mailed cassette tapes to each other. They were married in February 1966, a month after Ellie graduated. Eventually they returned, with their two kids, to the Chicago environs where they both grew up. Lou started Micro Methods, a computer consultancy, from which he says he is now “semi-retired.” Ellie got a master’s in counseling and, at 79, still maintains a full-time practice.
Ellie and Lou find themselves back on campus now and again. One time they visited Allen Hall, and took a photo in the same spot where they had posed for a snapshot back in the day. The photos tell the same tale but from different vantage points—at their story’s beginning and after more than 60 years together. “It was a great time in our lives,” Lou says of their days at Illinois. “It gave us our careers. And it gave us each other.”
If you found true love at Illinois, we’d love to know! Email us at IllinoisAlumni@uillinois.edu.
