Sandy Smith had her tickets for the senior prom, but not a date. She and her boyfriend had broken up two weeks earlier.
“No one I knew wanted to go,” she said. “And I had this $20 ticket.”
Sandy asked her friends and family if they know someone who could accompany her. Her brother suggested one of his friends as a blind date.
“The story on the street is her brother paid me to take her,” Stephen Smith said slyly. “It was an unsubstantiated rumor, but it was a rumor.”
The night after the prom, Stephen took her to a college party. They had a great time together but then didn’t hear from one after that. Sandy graduated high school and didn’t think too much more about her prom date until Stephen called her in January.
“And then he said he wanted me to be the mother of his brown-eyed babies,” Sandy said.
Sandy and Stephen married two years later at St. Ursula in Parkville and have just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.
“We’ve been married all this time,” she said, “and we still talk and we still have fun.”
The couple did have those “brown-eyed babies” – five children, four boys and a girl. Sandy hoped for one more to fill out their family.
“I really wanted another baby, but Stephen didn’t want any more after five,” she said. “So, I thought I’d watch someone else’s baby.”
Their foster son, Jamie, was four-years-old when he entered their lives and remained with them until adulthood. He joined their older children, Heidi, Andrew, Gregory, Jeremy and Scott.
Today the Smiths have 13 grandchildren. Their newest grandchild, Jamie’s baby, was baptized July 17 by their son, Father Jeremy Smith of Church of the Immaculate Conception in Towson.
“He kept us on our knees,” Sandy said of Jamie’s arrival in their family, “and now the dear Lord has blessed us with this dear little grandbaby.”
Visiting their grandchildren is one of the perks of retirement for them. They worship at St. Ursula, where four of their granddaughters sing in the music ministry, and then also at St. Ann Church in Washington, D.C., where another granddaughter plays music.
“We can go see the grandchildren when we want to,” Stephen said. “They’re so loved.”
“This is my favorite time of life,” Sandy said.
They are enjoying life now, spending time together on shared hobbies and taking pilgrimages to local Catholic churches and shrines. They spend weekends visiting with grandchildren and long-time friends. They are very active at St. Ursula, while also attending daily Mass at Christ the King Church in Towson and Sunday Mass at Immaculate Conception. Stephen and Sandy are extraordinary ministers of holy Communion. Sandy frequently brings Communion to parishioners who are unable to come to church.
Stephen is a retired Baltimore City schools administrator and Sandy is a former dental assistant and daycare worker. Raising children and taking active roles in their church community has kept them busy but they have always found time for one another.
“We used to go on a retreat together every six months,” Sandy said. “And then we’d go away for fun. Steven has never forgotten an anniversary or a birthday. He’ll just go to the store to buy a treat for me.”
Their faith, formed at The Catholic High School of Baltimore and Loyola Blakefield, and supported by Sandy’s lifelong parish at St. Ursula, has help to sustain them and nurture their family. They look forward to that faith being passed along to their grandchildren and watching them grow.
“We raised Catholics and churchgoers forever,” Stephen said. “God has always been part of our life together. The good Lord smiled on us – still blessing us and still here.”
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