A sweet story about a widow and a widower who met and married from yesterday’s New York Times. The widow is Dana Fern, and the widower is the Rev. J. Douglas Ousley, rector of the Episcopal Church of the Incarnation in the Murray Hill section of Manhattan. The piece includes a description of the couples first phone call, in which Title IV, of all things, plays a role.
When he told Ms. Fern that he was [a] rector, she said, she was aghast. He then asked if she went to church. “I told him I don’t really go to an organized church,” said Ms. Fern, who was raised as an Episcopalian and considers herself religious, but not a churchgoer.
She assumed that was a deal breaker. But he surprised her.
“Well, that’s good, now we can date,” Mr. Ousley said. (The church has strict rules about dating anyone who may be under their pastoral influence.)