This year’s Homecoming festivities will hold a special meaning for married alumni Sandy and Tadd Schwab as they celebrate Tadd’s 50th reunion with classmates from the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science, the place where they first met and started their lives together.
While some couples may point to a “meet cute” moment, for Sandy and Tadd, each has a different recollection of where and when they first met. “I remember meeting him at a Hillel meeting,” Sandy says.
“She was dating my friend, and I remember meeting her in a dorm room with friends, just hanging out,” Tadd recalls.
While their actual initial meeting may be left to the ages, the couple knew each other a full semester before they started to date. It was a fateful train trip that changed their lives forever. In New York during Christmas break to work for his family’s children’s clothing business, before heading back to school, Tadd reached out to Sandy.
“We were friends, so I knew she was in Long Island and called her to ask what train she was taking and suggest we ride back together,” he shares. The next day, he made his first move. “I called her back and said, ‘How about when we get back, we go to dinner?’ And she said, ‘Sure.’”
There was a potential romantic hiccup. “A friend of ours decided he wanted to meet Sandy at the train and snuck down to the track to wait for her,” Tadd shares. “With flowers,” Sandy adds.
Tadd continues, “He was a little surprised to see me walk off the train with her. We’re still all good friends. I don’t know if he realizes that’s what happened or not, but it was a funny story.”
Following their dinner, the couple began dating, but Sandy had a boyfriend back home. It took an ultimatum to make it official. “Eventually, he said, ‘Him or me, make up your mind,’” she says. Sandy and Tadd dated for a year. Tadd graduated in June of 1975, and the two were engaged that October. After a 15-month engagement, Sandy graduated six months early in December 1976, and the pair tied the knot on Sandy’s birthday in January 1977.
