A model train park—featuring little locomotives and an accompanying museum—might seem an unlikely destination for a first date, until Joe explains what the alternative was.
“Yes, I have had a long relationship with railroad modeling and I knew the park would be cool and shady and a place where we could sit and talk. Model railroading is one of my interests that has a visual and tangible presence. My other interests are genealogy and grave research and service for ‘Find-A-Grave.’ Genealogy is not something that will get a ladies’ interest on the first date and I sure did not want to take her for a walk in a graveyard,” Joe said.
It was certainly the wiser choice, given that his date Marsha had some trepidation about their first meeting.
As she put it, “I was cautious because I wanted to make sure this was a safe person for me to be with, and didn’t want to end up somewhere in the desert, and as a headline.”
Their date actually began with a meeting at her local parish where Marsha sang in the choir. From there they made stops at the IHOP in Old Scottsdale in Arizona before ending in the train park.
From the beginning, Marsha had—unwittingly—kept Joe guessing about her intentions towards him. For nearly a month, they had communicated via emoticons only. He later learned that due to financial circumstances she had been unable to obtain a full subscription.
He also discovered something else. “I found out, when she could finally communicate, that she was much more attractive than the emoticon that sent,” Joe quipped.
But when their first date ended, it did not end Joe’s guesswork.
“When I returned her to her residence she told me that she would walk to her apartment and that I did not need to walk her home. At that time I became worried that the date was unsuccessful,” he said.
“Later I discovered that she was afraid that I would not ask for another date if I saw her humble abode,” Joe added.
Instead, they found themselves in a whirlwind romance that wound up with an engagement within just a few months. (They met in 2015 and were engaged in September of that year. One year later, they married.)
“We felt like we were an unlikely couple at first because we definitely had different interests; yet we were able to talk about them,” Marsha said.
There was one thing they had in common she notes, both of their spouses had passed away. “We both had spouses that passed on and we were left to pick up the pieces and move forward,” said Marsha, now 68. She had been married for 20 years, Joe, for 47.
They struggled because they had both been caregivers.
Moreover, both had been caregivers for their ailing spouses. But this shared experience also was an initial barrier to their relationship. Joe, now 71, explains,“Both of us had been care givers for our late spouses and thus were used to assuming charge of their lives and our lives. After so many years doing this we were used to taking charge without consulting someone else.”
Despite their penchant for independence and their prior long marriages, both Joe and Marsha became convinced they were meant to be married again. As to how they knew this, both say it’s difficult to explain.
“This is something that defies definition through word. Neither of us was seeking the same things as a young couple but gave of ourselves freely based on our understanding of what a lasting marriage is drawing from our prior marriages,” Joe said.
Marsha attributes it to intervention from heaven.
“I truly believe that my late spouse, Albert, Our Lord, and my guardian angel were getting people, things, and events in line for the coming together of me and my sweet husband, Joe from Globe. Hard to explain how I knew that he would make a wonderful husband. This was all planned out by other circumstances—a marriage made from Heaven, literally,” she said.
“God was in our corner and he wanted us to join as a family,” Joe adds.
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