I'm married to Mary (formerly Mary Boomer), a Baptist minister. Mary has a Masters of Divinity degree from Acadia University, graduating the same year I did. We met, however, in Montreal where I was the pianist at Madison Baptist Church for the summer. Mary was travelling around Ontario and Quebec with the Youth Corps, doing church work and special services. When she came to my church we worked together to prepare music for the service and hit it off. We went to lunch with my parents who just happened to be visiting from Nova Scotia, and then went our separate ways. I knew Mary was going to be back in Montreal before the summer ended so I asked her to call me when she came, expecting never to hear from her again. Well, she called me and we had a great visit for a few more days. Then a few weeks passed and we got together for our entire last year there. Early in 1987 we got engaged and were married in Montreal on October 10, 1987.
Up until the summer of 1998 we lived in the town of Rockland, Ontario, just east of Ottawa, and went to Clarence Baptist Church in the nearby town of Clarence where Mary was the pastor and I was the music director. We'd been there since late 1988. About halfway through 1997 Mary was forced to leave her job pastor of the church because it was becoming much too difficult to take care of our children AND the church. Now Mary manages our household and takes good care of our ever happier children. That in itself is a pretty big job. You know the comic strip "Calvin and Hobbes"? We have two Calvins in this house! Mary is doing a remarkable job of raising some pretty creative children.
Mary has a very complicated personality. On the one hand she is very outgoing and people-oriented. On the other, she is a bit of an introvert. Sometimes I have to drag her to get her to go to social functions, but once she's there she becomes the centre of attention. Usually I'm the one that doesn't want to be around people, and Mary has always made up for my shortcomings. If it wasn't for her I probably wouldn't have met half the people I know.