St. Charles couple celebrates 60 years where it started – a blind date at St. Charles Bowl

ST. CHARLES – It was a fluke that Donna duBois and Ralph Andrini met on a blind date Dec. 10, 1961, at the newly opened St. Charles Bowl on Main Street.

He was 21 and she was 17.

“He came home from the Marines in August and his friend Jerry came home from the Army just prior to that,” Donna said. “He began dating Ralph’s cousin Karen and Karen would set Ralph up with girls from our friend group.”

Donna knew of two other girls Ralph dated before her, but he never had a second date with either of them after he met Donna.

Donna and Ralph began dating, became engaged in January 1963 and married on Sept. 7, 1963, at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in St. Charles.

Donna, 78, and Ralph, 82, celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary Sunday where it all started at St. Charles Bowl, accompanied by their three children and their spouses, 10 grandchildren, two great-grandchildren and extended family.

The couple have lived in St. Charles their entire married life.

“We were a good match,” Donna said. “We were of the same faith, Catholic. He was very steady and I was probably all over the map. It was good for me to have a steady, mature person in my life. He was wonderful.”

And it didn’t hurt that he was tall, dark and handsome.

“He was serious and a little bit shy with a dry sense of humor I have come to appreciate,” Donna said.

They saw each other every day, separated only when he went downstate for his plumbing license and once when he went deer hunting, she said.

“He would pick me up on our Saturday night and we would go to confession together,” Donna said.

Upon meeting Donna, Ralph said it was her yellow sweater.

“It was a perfect shade of yellow – or the way she filled it out,” Ralph said. “I’m just grateful to still be here and be able to celebrate 60 years of marriage together with our three children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. We have been blessed beyond belief.”

The Andrinis have a long history in St. Charles.

His father owned Till’s Bait Shop, 218 W. State St. in St. Charles, and Ralph was the first baby boy to be born at Delnor Hospital on Nov. 29, 1940.

Ralph graduated from Marmion in 1958 when it was a military academy.

Donna grew up in what is now Campton Hills.

“When I went to the Wasco School, there were seven kids in my class,” Donna said. “Now there’s four classes of everything.”

Donna and Ralph have lived in the same house in St. Charles for 53 years.

“We’ve really had a very ordinary life,” Donna said. “But when you look back at it, that ordinary is pretty extraordinary.”