Haddonfield residents share proposal stories with community

In honor of National Proposal Day on March 20, the Sun asked residents to send in their proposal stories. Here are some of the submissions that were received:

Submitted by Harriet Monshaw

My favorite date, Valdemar, whom I had met in October of the previous year, and I had gone ice-skating in mid-January on the flooded pond at Cooper River Park in Pennsauken. While sitting on a bench removing our ice skates and talking about France, he asked me if I wanted to go to France with him. He said that Air France was having a special on airfares for couples, but they had to have the same last names. I said that we didn’t; he said we could. I said that it was an idea, but wondered what he really meant.

Later that month he took me to dinner for my birthday at Braddock’s Tavern in Medford. In a romantic, candlelit dining room, we were seated next to a roaring fireplace. He ordered a carafe of wine. I was surprised; he usually ordered only a half carafe. After consuming most of the wine, he asked me when I’d like to go shopping for an engagement ring. I was surprised — didn’t directly reply, but didn’t refuse. Playing for time, I said how about on your birthday in April. He said that he would like it to be sooner, but agreed. I was unsure.

While making up my mind, I thought about that proverbial dress in a shop that is perfect for you, but you’re undecided whether to buy it or not. You leave the shop without the dress, but return to the shop two weeks later and it’s gone. Someone else had snapped it up.

We were engaged on his birthday in April. Unlike our normal, cautious natures, we were married in August. We had a magical honeymoon in Nice, France and Venice, Italy.

I had been proposed to a few times prior to this, but this was the most romantic and clever — he knew how to reel me in — but then I liked him very much; we had similar interests and backgrounds. I knew if I had delayed too long, he would find someone else.

I had a commemorative tree planted in front of 208 Kings Highway East. The inscription reads: Val and Harriet Monshaw, An exceptional man; a most fortunate woman.

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Submitted by Irene L. Feitshans

Most people in Haddonfield never met the father of Jay Levy Feitshans JD, class of 2005 HMHS, and of Emalyn Levy Feitshans, Haddonfield Friends School and Friends Select School class of 2009. So they might be quite surprised to know that Ted and Ilise Feitshans’ marriage story was very romantic!

The couple met in the most unlikely and un-romantic of places, Georgetown Law School. A colleague of the future groom met the future bride and instantly pronounced as he introduced them to each other, “you’re perfect for each other,” but in typical future-lawyer fashion dutifully added, “but I have no liability for any future consequences.” Ilise was headed for a career in international public health law and had lined up an internship in the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. Marriage was the farthest priority from her plan, but her children’s future father had other plans on mind. He took off from his job on the staff of the Secretary of Agriculture in the USDA in Washington, D.C., and flew to Paris, France where he proposed at the Louvre museum, at dinner along the Quai Voltaire and at the Rodin Museum. In fact, he proposed everywhere non-stop for an entire week, insisting, “I want you to have my children!”

When Ilise remained unpersuaded, he wrote her letters that arrived at her office in Switzerland every working day! Simple notes stating that it was time for breakfast and that they should be breakfasting together, not alone. The internship ended, Ilise went home to Washington, D.C., and the couple was engaged. As noted in the Georgetown Law Weekly article with their official engagement picture, the couple married at the Plaza Hotel in the bride’s hometown New York City. The tall, blonde law student and suitor had won his first case!

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Submitted by Irene L. Feitshans

“Mariage pour tous!” (marriage for everyone) proclaims the French political slogan, and therefore Dominique Charoy asked, “Pourquoi pas nous?” — why not us too?

Until he proposed marriage to his wife in 2012, Dominique lived a quiet half a century; an orphan raised in French foster homes without extended family a spouse or children. Dominique is truly French, by language, culture and military service.

Until his wedding, his greatest experience catering a personal rite of passage was when he invited a handful of close friends to dine in a restaurant celebrating his birthday. No one could be more surprised than Dominique himself, that he was married in the elegant villa that houses the Museum of the History of Science in Geneva, Switzerland.

“When I grew up Americans were far away heroes that we thanked, but never saw. Now they are everywhere,” Dominique mused. “Even in my pajamas.”

Even more out of the blue was his choice of bride: a bilingual lawyer and former United Nations International civil servant with a Masters of Science in Public Health, who was researching for her doctorate in the emerging laws of nanotechnology, while serving as a invited scientist at the University of Lausanne and a volunteer official U.N representative for a non-governmental organization in Geneva — the not-quiet, long-time Haddonfield resident, Ilise L. Feitshans.

It is equally surprising that only old-fashion low-tech personal introductions explain how such an improbable couple met; Dominique refused to use the web or own a computer until Ilise met him.

Believe it or not, for Dominique, it was love at first sight; he knew he was in for the long haul when he offered to drive Ilise to the airport one summer in 2011. She was going back to the states to deliver a presentation, with no plans to return for at least a month.

“As she got near my car I saw this little woman with a huge valise almost as large as she was, and she told me, ‘Be careful. It’s not heavy, but the valise is borrowed.’ I lifted a huge heavy bag into my trunk and I thought to myself, I am going to be doing this the rest of my life,” Dominique said.

People who know Ilise know that his instinct was right: she travels almost perpetually. But it wasn’t until a few months later that she caught on that he was the serious one for her.

“I went back to the states again for three days around Thanksgiving,” she said. “He had no phone and I had two of them, one U.S.A. and one Swiss. So I lent him the Swiss phone and said, ‘Here, I use this speed dial to call myself when I have misplaced my U.S.A. phone. Usually I let it ring and then I know where is my phone. This time, you answer though, and it will be much nicer.’ I was afraid he would not answer when I called, but he did answer. And he was so glad to see me when I returned; one would think that I had been lost forever.

“Then he proposed to me! I was a real idiot, though. I laughed and said, ‘What is it with this place? You know how many men in Geneva have proposed marriage to me?’ He looked mortified. I wanted to name them, but good sense somehow overcame me and instead I said, ‘I don’t believe them,’ trying to explain myself. I asked, ‘How many women have you proposed to?’ and he said ‘Never.’”

Ilise was blown away.

“Never married? Never engaged? No children?”

“Never,” he repeated.

And then he said the magic words, “I have prayed everyday of my life for a woman to love me, and now I have found you. I have been waiting for you all of my life.”

How could I refuse? The simple purity of Dominique’s request makes him irresistible.