Frank Cotter was working for the State Department as a deputy inspector general, when he was sent down to St. Lucia to see a Peace Corps group in action. Malinda said when they met, there were no immediate pangs of romance but they definitely liked each other's company. She said one of the other volunteers told the group that she invited this very nice American man home, but that they shouldn't get excited because he had four children. "There wasn't any romance then, but we were friends," she said. "I didn't see him again for three years." She said once he left the island, they wrote a few times, but it eventually dwindled down. "In Jan. 1965, he called and invited me to go with him to the inaugural ball," she said. So she went. Turns out, Frank had written Malinda a letter that never got to her and had spent a length of time trying to track her down after they lost touch. They were married in April of 1965 and Malinda said when she saw Frank again, she knew. "That was when we knew, ‘this is it,'" she said.
Peace Corps Volunteer Malinda Cotter married as Peace Corps Volunteer in Saint Lucia in 1960s
A Peace Corps Love Story
On the eve of the 50th anniversary of the formation of the Peace Corps, three Ponte Vedra couples celebrate Valentine's Day remembering how they first met.
By Sara Kaufman | Feb. 10, 2011 | 1 comment
[Excerpt]
Malinda and Frank Cotter
Malinda Cotter heeded Kennedy's call in 1961. After getting a degree in nursing, she decided to volunteer for the corps.
"I volunteered and had to take an exam," she said. "And then, all of a sudden it happened and I had to go in a few days."
Malinda volunteered as a nurse in St. Lucia from 1961 to 1963 and said the experience was wonderful.
"The experience was like something you would never get at home," she said.
For Malinda, the corps wasn't just the adventure of a life time. It was where she met Frank Cotter, who she's been married to for 46 years.
Frank Cotter was working for the State Department as a deputy inspector general, when he was sent down to St. Lucia to see a Peace Corps group in action.
Malinda said when they met, there were no immediate pangs of romance but they definitely liked each other's company. She said one of the other volunteers told the group that she invited this very nice American man home, but that they shouldn't get excited because he had four children.
"There wasn't any romance then, but we were friends," she said. "I didn't see him again for three years."
She said once he left the island, they wrote a few times, but it eventually dwindled down.
"In Jan. 1965, he called and invited me to go with him to the inaugural ball," she said.
So she went.
Turns out, Frank had written Malinda a letter that never got to her and had spent a length of time trying to track her down after they lost touch.
They were married in April of 1965 and Malinda said when she saw Frank again, she knew.
"That was when we knew, ‘this is it,'" she said.
Malinda said if it wasn't for the corps, she would have never met Frank, and he was thankful for it too.
"The man [Frank] worked for in the State Department tried to write our story for the department and he told us they said it sounded to simple," she said. "Its been a good story for us."
