Marquette
Love Stories
Michael
McCleish, Arts '96, and Jennifer (Blattner) McCleish, Arts '97
My wife Jennifer and
I met for the first time in Western Civilizations 2.
Early one week in November
1994, I strained a muscle in my neck while trying to move some
furniture that greatly outweighed my ability. This strain caused
my head to stay turned about 20 degrees to the right. I had my
habitual seat in the classroom with Dr. Hay off to my left. With
my head turned, I couldn't watch her as she made notes on the
board, so I made the daring switch to other side of the room where
the "strangers" were.
Two classes later, I
got a tap on my shoulder and turned around. There sat a beautiful
young woman that I had never noticed in our class before. We made
small talk about a project that was coming up. As the classes
went on, we would talk before and after every class. I told her
of a tradition in my family called the "first-snow chili."
At the first snow of the year, we would cook a pot of chili over
a period of 24 hours, then leave it on low heat on the stove until
it was gone. I told Jennifer since I lived in Humphrey Hall and
had a kitchen that I was going to carry on this tradition for
my roommates. On the day of the first snow, Jennifer asked me
if I had the chili going. I certainly did. Then she put the hook
in me. I never saw it coming. She told me she had never had chili
before. My first thought was, "Who has never had chili? Especially
someone from some place as cold as Milwaukee." Oh well. I
invited her over for dinner.
Chili was good. Company
was even better. She told me several years later she was thinking,
"Who's dumb enough to believe someone from Milwaukee has
never had chili in their lifetime?" We got over the food
and intuition shortcomings, went to a few parties, and began to
spend most of our time together.
Since Jennifer is from
Milwaukee, I was able to meet most of her family very easily.
It was also a nice break to get away from campus. Jennifer and
I traveled to my home in St. Louis, MO several times over the
next year and half to ensure she could handle my family.
The summer before my
senior I asked her to marry me while we were vacationing in Mercer,
WI. That seems like a long time ago as we have been married for
nearly eight and half years and have two wonderful children, Patrick,
almost 4, and Colleen, 2.
I have lots of great
Marquette stories, but this is one that will never be forgotten.
Kelly
McBride, Comm '04, and Joel Fournier, Arts '04
We met the first day
of freshman year outside of Cobeen hall. Joel had just moved into
Tower from Colorado, and was in full cowboy gear when he approached
me and so charmingly stated, "What's a pretty girl like you
doing sittin' all by yourself?" We watched a movie together
in Tower, and I received my first kiss as a college student. Joel
and I remained friends, but the antics and freedom of freshman
year allowed no room for a relationship beyond the friend stage
(in fact, I soon realized I was not the only Cobeen girl kissed
by Joel Fournier, but that's a whole other story altogether).
Then, second semester
of our senior year, Joel and I were in the same Sociology class
together. The very first day, Joel confessed how he had liked
me since freshman year, and asked me out on a date. Still a skeptic,
I had a nice time on the date, but didn't return his calls that
weekend. In fact, I went home to Chicago for that weekend. Joel
ended up looking up my mom's number in Chicago and calling just
to ask how I was. Needless to say, I gave in and went out on another
date...and another, and another... Joel proposed the night before
graduation in front of all of our family and friends. We were
married April 8th, 2005. Thank you, Marquette - for my education
and my husband.
Jeff
Kurka, Arts '91, and Amy (Rohrer) Kurka, Arts '91
One day during winter
break 1989 I was sitting around the apartment watching the snow
fall onto Kilbourne when a friend of mine called and said, “Hey,
I have a friend who wants to set her friend up for a blind date.
Would you be interested n being the blind date?” I said sure,
I would love to. He then said, “She wants to meet you to make
surer you are OK for her friend.”
The next thing I know
the two of them are at my door. She was about the cutest thing
I had ever seen in a little beret and a blue wool coat. They came
in and we started talking. After a couple of hours, my friend
had to go, but she stayed and we talked into the evening about
everything under the sun. She never did set me up with her friend,
and instead, 17 years later we are happily married with a daughter,
and I am thankful that she did not think I was a good fit for
her friend, but was a good fit for her.
Shane
Falk, Arts '93, and Julie (Scott) Falk, Arts '93
My wife and I met freshman
year at Marquette in 1989. My introduction to my wife occurred
at orientation "social gatherings" around campus. She
and her cheerleading friends had it out for one of my friends
and me. They even went as far as to squirt toothpaste on my friend's
dorm door. However, they didn't know my name or the location of
my room! Thank goodness because his door was a disaster.
We kept bumping into
each other at "social gatherings" throughout the Fall
of 1989. In addition, we ended up having quite a few classes together.
We despised each other at first, calling each other rude names
and other immature antics. She was a cheerleader and her friends
didn't run in the same circle as my friends; however, it always
seemed that we "crashed" their "social gatherings."
That just antagonized her all the more.
Eventually, I had to
ask her a question in our German class one day, then astronomy,
then history, etc. As Fall of 1989 progressed, we ended up being
study mates, all the while dating other people. In fact, we even
set each other up on double dates on more than one occasion, where
we ended up talking to each other more than our own dates. We
eventually became best friends. We were so close that she even
allowed me to have her huge stereo in my room, because she was
only three floors up and could stop down to listen to it when
I wasn't using it. Most of our friends and dorm mates thought
we were romantically involved long before we actually were. In
fact, we were such close friends that both of us have the unfortunate
knowledge of each others' wonderful freshman year experiences
at "social gatherings" and the like.
It wasn't until after
the Winter Break in 1990 that we finally discovered that our close
friendship could be much more. I was very reluctant to date her
because I just had this bizarre knowledge that if we did date,
that would be it and I would never date again. That is really
hard to stomach when you are only half-way through a wonderful
and very social freshman year. Well, I took the plunge and we
started dating early in second semester freshman year. We have
never looked back and have thoroughly enjoyed our friendship,
relationship, and marriage.
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We ended up getting married just prior to our
senior year at Marquette on August 1, 2002. The weather was
great and we took many pictures on campus at the Jesuit Gardens
(I had worked at the Memorial Union) and in front of the Joan
of Arc Chapel. We were the youngest couple to get married
at Holy Family Church, Whitefish Bay, in over two decades,
but here we are nearly 13 years later with two wonderful children,
Morgan (8) and Dorsey (7), and two legal careers. Dorsey was
named after Dorsey Levens, formerly of the |
Green Bay Packers. He
was born at half-time of the '98 Superbowl, in which the Packers
were playing, but ultimately lost. Morgan was born about a week
before the '97 Superbowl. In light of this precedence, my wife
and I are actually happy that the Packers did not go to any more
superbowls in the 90's. We might have had more children!
We both credit Marquette
University for a wonderful education, our meeting, friendship,
relationship and marriage. We truly are happy and we have the
fondest memories of our time at Marquette .
I sure hope that others
have had the fortune that I have had.
Maureen
(Ramirez) Cisneros, Arts '99, and Steve Cisneros, Arts '99
My husband and I met
at a block party during Senior Week 1999. We were both Spanish
majors, but had never had a class together and didn't know each
other. We met on the Tuesday before graduation and exchanged numbers.
I called him the next day because I needed help moving to Madison.
He made up a story that he was from Madison (actually, Janesville)
and needed to go home. We spent our first "date" driving
separately on I-94 to my new apartment in Madison. He moved all
my things into my apartment and then went on to Janesville.
Back in Milwaukee, we
saw each other the next few days, and at Baccalaureate Mass our
families met each other. Over the summer he worked in Janesville
and visited me in Madison. In the fall he was student teaching
in Milwaukee, so we saw each other on the weekends. After that,
he moved to Madison, found a teaching job, and we've been together
ever since. We were married in December 2001. We tell people that
we met in college, but only four days before graduation. Senior
Week is our favorite Marquette tradition!
Jennifer
(Walther) Dreyer, Comm '98, and Carl Dreyer, Arts '98
My husband and I met
our second semester of our senior year in an 8 a.m. history course.
This was my first 8 a.m. class at MU, and of course I was running
late, so when I entered the room, I quickly scouted for a back
seat. Unfortunately, a backpack was in my way, so I was forced
to sit in the middle of the room. The teacher began the course
with an icebreaker to connect her students with one another. The
guy in front of me turned around and introduced himself and stated
he was from North Riverside, IL . Surprised, I stated I was from
Riverside and questioned why we didn't meet sooner. That conversation
resulted in a growing friendship and then, romance, which in turn,
led to his Scottish castle proposal and our wedding in September
of 2002.
Sabina
(Misquitta) Valladares, Grad '91, and Joe Valladares
Joe was visiting his
cousin at Marquette. She happened to be my roommate. I was really
busy studying for my comprehensive exams and didn't pay too much
attention to him. When I finished my last exam, we got around
to talking over pizza at Angelo's. We just talked and talked.
It helped that we were both Physics majors. His visit came to
an end a few days later but we kept in touch via the phone and
letters. E-mail wasn't around too much then. We married two years
later and on June 13th of this year, we will be celebrating our
13th wedding anniversary with our three kids, Joshua, Sofia and
Olivia.
Margaret
(Schmank) Martinic, Nurs '79, and Leo Martinic, Bus Ad '80
It was our sophomore
year in August of 1976 when we both resided in Schroeder Hall.
During the first week of classes, my roommate and I who were both
nursing students, were studying in our room 907. We were annoyed
by the constant banging we heard coming from the room above us.
I decided to make a phone call to room 1007 and politely ask if
they could stop the noise. About thirty minutes later we heard
a knock on our door. I opened it to see handsome young boy with
books under his arm who introduced himself as the resident from
room 1007. He had come to personally apologize for bouncing his
basketball earlier. He had another motive for the visit as he
had heard that my roommate, Terese, was quite cute and wanted
to check her out for himself. His name was Leo Martinic, and he
mentioned that he actually went to the library to study for his
accounting classes so not to be disturbed by other dorm residents!
He met me in the cafeteria
after studying and sat with me for dinner that night. Later he
asked me out on a date to the "Stoned Toad" with a group
of other MU students. We were married in June 1981. Now we have
four terrific children all who have played on various basketball
teams! Our first daughter, Michelle, who just graduated (Dec.
2004) from the nursing program at MU, will marry her MU sweetheart
(an engineer - Bryan Ramsey, May 2005 grad) this August!
Our second daughter,
Amy, will be a junior in Communications at MU. Our third daughter,
Monica, whose godfather was my husband's roommate in Schroeder—Robert
Pierce,1980 accounting grad) is studying education at University
of Dayton in Ohio. We also have one son, Leo, who is in the fourth
grade at St. Peter's School in Maryland where we now live! How
did we get from the Midwest to Maryland? One of Leo's MU classmates
(Ed Sella, accounting class of 1980) was looking for a partner
for his accounting and financial investment firm in 2000 and we
made the big move. The ties and networking from MU have never-ending
possibilities.
My husband and I will
be married 24 wonderful years this coming June. MU has always
held special memories for us!
Joe
Galatowitsch, Eng. '81, and Therese (Onderak) Galatowitsch, Dent
Hy '80
My spouse, Joe Galatowitsch
and I met in September 1976 during our freshman year at Marquette
in the area between Lalumiere and Brooks Memorial Union. At the
time, the student body was involved in a massive camp-out and
the mall was covered with tents. We were camping out to get a
number to get a place in line to purchase basketball tickets for
the Marquette Warrior basketball season. Little did we know that
the team would go on to win the NCAA championship that season.
Joe and I remained good friends throughout our years at Marquette.
We were married in September 1982, six years from when we first
met.
Frank
Wach, Eng '70, and Ann (Dahm) Wach, Arts '69
In 1966, I was a sophomore
in engineering and my wife, Ann, was a sophomore in math. To help
make money for school, she took a job in the Physics Department,
which is how we met. I went to my first physics class and there
were only two girls out of 350 students in class, so it wasn't
too exciting. We were all told to sit down, and then in walked
Ann to take attendance. The class gave her a rousing applause.
She turned red, smiled a lot and continued taking attendance.
Every night after supper,
I would stop into the Walgreen's store just to kill time. Ann
would usually show up, I would tell the guys rather loudly so
Ann would hear, "We should be nice to this girl so we could
get a few more cuts!" Ann would smile and say it wouldn't
matter; we were going to flunk anyway.
This flirting went on for
the first semester. I grew a beard and looked pretty shaggy. I
think Ann was afraid of me. The second semester Honors Physics
didn't have enough students to have its own lab sections so they
combined with Engineering Physics. I came to lab and saw Ann in
the group, so I went over to talk. We were talking so much, we
didn't hear the teacher telling us to pick partners. After awhile
the lab instructor came over and said, "You two are the last
two in class. Do you want to be partners?" We were great
lab partners—the experiments never turned out! When we talked
to the instructor about it, he said, "Why is it, I have everyone
else's data and than I have yours?” So after class Ann and I would
go out for coffee and figure out what we had done wrong and massage
the data so we could write our lab reports.
Later that semester I got
the great idea to go on a date. I heard about the movie Blow-Up
and asked Ann to join me. Little did I know that because
I wasn't moving as fast as other guys, Ann's girlfriends thought
I was gay. Luckily after that date, I was able to change their
minds. We dated for a while and Ann asked me to come to Minnesota
for a wedding the first semester of our junior year. By then I
had fallen in love with Ann and was thinking about marriage. At
the wedding reception, I had a little too much to drink and on
the way over to her mother's house I asked her to marry me. Ann
accepted. But she was smart enough to ask me again the next morning
if I meant it. We got married after our first semester of our
senior year, December 28, 1968. And as I tell her today, after
37 years, I love her and I mean it! We have two boys and four
grandchildren.
