50th Wedding Anniversary for Francis and Lorna Straus

Lorna and Fran Straus and guests at their cottage, Maple Lodge, during the celebration of their 50th wedding anniversary.

Lorna and Francis Straus celebrated their 50th anniversary Saturday, June 18, at a party for friends at their summer home, Maple Lodge, in the Annex.

The couple was married June 11, 1955, while Dr. Straus was finishing medical school and Mrs. Straus was being graduated from college. In lieu of a honeymoon, they rushed to Cambridge for the bride’s graduation.

Both have had long careers at the University of Chicago following graduation, Dr. Francis Straus as a professor of pathology and Lorna Straus as a professor of anatomy, and they continue to spend their winters in Chicago.

Mrs. Straus, the daughter of cottagers E.W. and Helen Puttkammer, spent childhood summers on Mackinac Island, growing up in the cottage next door to where she now lives. Dr. Straus often came to the Island on vacation. They bought Maple Lodge in 1970.

The Strauses have four children, Francis, Helen, Christopher, and Michael, and one granddaughter, Ariana, the daughter of Michael and his wife, Melissa.