PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALLISON POTTER
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Fast forward to dinner by the water, a kiss on Wrightsville Beach
and a message on Gretchen’s answering machine by the time she
landed back in Pittsburgh, with Eric’s home number.
HE: “I flew to Pittsburgh for Thanksgiving and asked her dad for
her hand. Sure, it was pretty quick, but hey — when you see some-thing
www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com WBM
good, you don’t want it to get away.”
SHE: “Dad was like, ‘Take ‘er!’”
She relocated to Wilmington and got a job at Laney High
School. Almost nine years later, Mr. and Mrs. Eric Kozen have
fond memories of that hot summer day in 2004 with those hoop
skirts ringing ’round Sgt. Broughton’s headstone.
SHE: “The Daughters of the Confederacy have kind of adopted me.”
