When we met the Jawo family to talk about Rosemarie’s birth, they were preparing to move from Ithaca to Durham, North Carolina, to be closer to family. Lori Bruce-Jawo is well known to Ithaca as the Ithaca City School District’s former chief excellence officer. Her husband, Anthony Jawo, has been staying home with Rosemarie, who is clearly thriving under his care. At nine months old she weighed eighteen pounds and was twenty-eight inches tall, which put her right on target for her age.

Marian and Ben Saks, DO, both grew up in Schuyler County. Her parents live two miles down the road in Hector and several of his family members live in the area as well, including his dad, Dr. William Saks, a beloved ob-gyn physician recently retired from Schuyler Hospital, where Ben now practices internal medicine. “Ours was an arranged marriage,” Ben says, laughing. “My sister and Marian’s cousins decided we should end up together.” And it came to pass that Marian and Ben were married in 2010.