She Updated Her Profile and Suddenly Got Her Match!
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After six months on CatholicMatch, Donna was having trouble connecting with anyone. She had come to the site in the hopes of finding someone who shared her commitment to her faith, but there simply weren’t very many suitable men in Vermont, where she lived, and of the ones she contacted, none of them responded to her messages.
But, Then She Went on Vacation!
In August of 2016, Donna went on vacation to Maine, where a trio of friends helped her to overhaul and update her profile. In the process, she decided to expand her search range beyond the confines of the Green Mountain State to ‘within driving distance’. Upon running this expanded search, she found her attention caught by the profile of a man named Harold in Berkshire, Massachusetts, a self-described “organic farmer at heart.”
As it happened, Donna had a great appreciation for farmers, having worked part-time at a local family-run farm that very summer. She mentioned this in her initial message to him saying how his profile had caught her eye.
Meanwhile, vacation was ending and Donna – who worked at an elementary school – faced the hurry and burry of starting a new school year. So, it was over a week before she discovered that he had responded.
But, He Was Patient...
This was the beginning of what she called “a nice dialogue back and forth,” corresponding through CatholicMatch, asking and answering one another’s questions.
“I was attracted to his humor,” Donna reported. “And the openness of his replies to my questions.”
After a few months of this, as autumn waxed full in New England, the two exchanged phone numbers and made arrangements to meet. Harold had plans to go visit his ancestors’ gravestones in Northern Vermont, and they determined to meet in the course of the trip.
So, They Met at Mass!
Harold left her a voicemail saying he was coming. Donna called back and left him a message in return, saying she would meet him at Mass the next day at her local church, St. Mary’s. To make it easy for him to find her, she said that she would be sitting on the left side, midway up, wearing an autumn dress.
Harold said he would be nervous. Donna certainly felt nervous, though also excited, and a little cautious.
The next day she arrived for Mass early...but found there was already a car in the parking lot nonetheless. A car with Massachusetts plates. Sure enough, there Harold was, sitting midway up on the left side. Donna slid into the pew next to him and said, “you can breathe now.”
Following Mass, Donna took Harold on a tour of the Jeffersonville area, driving the Smuggler’s Notch scenic road and having lunch at the (delightfully named) Piecasso restaurant in Stowe.
“He was a delightful gentleman,” Donna said. “It just felt right.”
The following month she repaid him with a visit to the Berkshires, and he in his turn gave her a tour of the area, including his own property.
They Were On the Right Track!
Meanwhile, Donna prayed that, if they were on the right track with this relationship, God would give her a sign. Lo and behold, while touring Harold’s property they found a patch of flowering red clover – the Vermont State Flower – blooming unusually late in the season on his land.
Following that, they continued to date regularly, despite the difficulties of the 5-hour distance. Sometimes they met in Vermont, sometimes in Massachusetts, or sometimes they met halfway. They would go to movies, or art shows, or meet for meals, and Mass, of course.
“I realized that I had met the woman of my dreams,” said Harold. “But was unsure about what would happen to my dream of a farm. As we were both older and in lives that we loved.”
It Was Time to Plan a Proposal!
Such worries notwithstanding, however, in July of 2017 Harold secretly applied to Donna’s father for her hand in marriage. He then began to plan how he would ask her.
In September, on Donna’s 50th birthday, the couple booked a ‘Spirit of Ethan Allen’ sunset cruise and dinner on Lake Champlain. There, as the sun went down over the lake, Harold got down on one knee and asked Donna if she would do him “the honor of being his wife.” She consented, and a little over a year after that first contact on CatholicMatch, he slipped a claddagh birthstone engagement ring upon her finger.
Come another August, and the couple was wed in St. Mary’s: the same church where Harold sat waiting for Donna before their first date. Three years later finds the two of them on their land, pounding nails and lifting wood shoulder to shoulder to build their new house and their new home together.