{"id":14525,"date":"2024-05-07T08:10:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-07T12:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/?p=14525"},"modified":"2024-05-06T13:57:20","modified_gmt":"2024-05-06T17:57:20","slug":"colgate-love-stories-john-92-and-robin-pratt-92-rathjens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/2024\/05\/07\/colgate-love-stories-john-92-and-robin-pratt-92-rathjens\/","title":{"rendered":"Colgate Love Stories: John \u201992 and Robin Pratt \u201992 Rathjens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Shared Vision<\/h2>\n\n\n
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John Rathjens \u201992 made a crucial mistake in his first days at Colgate in 1988.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was waiting in line during drop\/add, the notoriously long and laborious process then-required to create a class schedule, when he spotted a \u201csuper cute blonde\u201d with a friendly smile. She was chatting with friends from her residence hall as John nervously approached and introduced himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure I got her name, but I didn\u2019t remember it,\u201d says John, who \u201ckicked himself\u201d each time he saw the nameless blonde on campus in the following weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe\u2019d greet me with a big \u2018Hi, John!\u2019 and I\u2019d have to stumble over my words,\u201d he says. Eventually, John did learn Robin\u2019s name, and the two biology majors grew close in their Animals as Organisms class, where they\u2019d exchange notes featuring John\u2019s elaborate doodles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a very good artist,\u201d says Robin. \u201cI loved watching him draw.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That winter, they arranged an official first date \u2014 at the Hamilton Theater to see the Tom Hanks comedy Punchline<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe hated it,\u201d Robin says. \u201cBut we were comfortable enough with each other that we didn\u2019t feel the need to be polite. We both laughed and talked about how terrible it was after.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As their relationship blossomed, John and Robin learned they had much more in common than their biology major. They shared an interest in the arts, with a love for art history, especially. They joined the racquetball club, enrolled in the same music electives, and worked on sculpture projects together \u2014 part of John\u2019s studio art minor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Junior and senior years, they chose to live in the Creative Arts House, where they learned to cook in the kitchen, picking up new recipes from their housemates, like authentic Chinese stir fry and homemade hummus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe still make some of those recipes today,\u201d says John.<\/p>\n\n\n

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After graduation, during a summer internship at Brigham and Women\u2019s Hospital, John reevaluated his plans for medical school \u2014 and Robin\u2019s lifelong interest in optometry inspired him to pursue a different path. The couple settled in Boston, where John started optometry school and Robin began working at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. She followed him into optometry school not long after.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon, John proposed, and the couple returned to Colgate to tie the knot in Memorial Chapel, followed by an outdoor reception on a rain-soaked day in summer 1996.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a really fun party,\u201d says John. \u201cThough everybody did talk about throwing their muddy shoes out afterward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 1999, they had both graduated from the New England College of Optometry and were working in separate practices. A few years later, now living in Connecticut, John and Robin saw the opportunity to start a new practice \u2014 together. In 2005, they opened Rathjens Vision Care in Milford, Conn., where they\u2019ve been working nearly side by side ever since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As their business grew, so did their family: son Anton arrived in 2006, daughter Eliza two years later. And with their children now approaching college age, John and Robin find themselves marveling at just how young they were \u2014 both 18 \u2014 when they first met and fell in love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe were really just kids when we met,\u201d says John. \u201cBut that allowed us to share so many new experiences, especially at Colgate. I like to say that we grew up together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These alumni are both optometrists and married each other in Colgate Memorial Chapel. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1272,"featured_media":14526,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[37,251,1394,76,2130,2129],"coauthors":[1720],"class_list":["post-14525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alumni-updates","category-colgate-love-stories","tag-art","tag-biology","tag-entrepreneur","tag-love-stories","tag-memorial-chapel","tag-optometry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-3Mh","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2024\/04\/IMG_9197.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1272"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14525"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15155,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14525\/revisions\/15155"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14525"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=14525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}