When I returned to Chicago in the fall of 1946, a closer relationship was brewing between Wilma Abeles and me. I had met her in the summer of 1944 at Helena Gamer’s seminar, where she had made a great impression on me with her engaging contributions to discussions. We now met almost once a week to go for a walk or to have lunch together. But our relationship remained, at least on the surface, completely platonic. Even after I realized that I had fallen in love with her, I didn’t have the courage to confess it to her at first. For me, she was a person of respect. She was older than me, was further along in her studies, and - making a big impression on me - had already taught at a university, the University of New Brunswick in Canada. I was afraid she would reject me if I revealed my feelings to her, and that then our friendship would also come to an end. Moreover, I knew that she was also friends with other men she had told me about.
As her exams approached in the summer - the “comprehensive examinations”, the requirement for admission to the doctoral thesis - she told me that she would now have less time for me. And for some time we saw each other less. But that changed very suddenly in early July, just a few weeks before the exam. I offered to help her prepare by looking up information for her in the library. She accepted my offer, and we then met every evening. We sat up late in the large living room of the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Robie house, cramming for our exams - I was already preparing for my exams the next spring. Now and then we would interrupt our work to talk about God and the world without ever exchanging so much as a kiss. I was very worried about Wilma’s exams, since I knew that the department was not well disposed towards her. However, she passed all the exams. Right after that, at the end of August 1947, she went to her parents in Canada, and I went to mine in Richmond. In Richmond I began to teach myself Czech from a textbook to impress her, without ever making much progress with it. I returned to Chicago at the end of September. In Canada, people suspected that things were serious between me and Wilma. A few days later, Wilma’s father came to Chicago. We were friendly, but I didn’t know that he had come to meet me. Wilma had told him beforehand that she wanted to introduce him to the man she was going to marry, but he didn’t know anything about it yet.
Source: Wilma and Georg Iggers, Zwei Seiten der Geschichte. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2002, p. 93f (translation)