Colonial Love Q & A: Donald & Judith

Thanks to Donald Lokerson, SEAS, Bachelor of Electrical Engineering ’62, MS ’68, and Judith Lokerson for sharing their story!

Where did you meet on campus? First day of our freshman year in September 1957, in Dr. Naeser’s chemistry class. A bit bashful, Donald got Doris (his sister) to invite me to the annual Engineer’s Picnic in Rock Creek Park in September 1960, and we became a pair then.

What were your first impressions of each other? [Donald is a triplet] I had known about the Lokerson triplets for about five years, as one of their junior high classmates had shown me her yearbook with their pictures in it, and I never forgot. GW decided to put a picture of them on the front page of the Washington Post, as they registered for classes, with Donald pointing out some machinery in the engineering school.

What only-at-GW moment did you share as a couple? We often ate lunch together in the Student Union. We became engaged  in April after driving all over the city—from Hains Point to Great Falls Park to Chevy Chase to Arlington.

Anything else you want to share?  Donald’s parents, John Thornton Lokerson and Dorothy Elizabeth Ehlshlager, met at GW. After she graduated from Central High School, she became secretary to the dean of the engineering school.  John, a graduate of McKinley Tech, enrolled in the engineering school to study civil engineering.  They started dating in the early 1930s and were married by Dr. Frederick Brown Harris, chaplain of the Senate, at his home on June 16, 1934.

My parents also met at GW in the early 1930s, having graduated from Eastern and Central high schools. They were Stetson Conn and Mary Alice Stadden, and they were married at St. Paul’s on K Street on June 16, 1936, two years to the day the Lokersons were married!