- Share via
By Brittany Levine, brittany.levine@latimes.com
There’s something about a good “how you met” story that inspires, elates and melts hearts. Here are four surprising and interesting stories of how locals met.
Love is a Marathon
Sona Donayan had almost given up on an online dating site for Armenians after using it for about a year. Then she saw a message from a Glendale man interested in running, just like her.
Sako Defterderian, a mechanic, ran a few miles now and then, but never any marathons like Donayan, a nutrition professor at Glendale Community College. Defterderian started training with Donayan and, four months later, they ran the Lake Tahoe Marathon together.
Donayan started feeling chest pain around that time, but shrugged it off, thinking she was just tired from a recent hiking trip in Peru.
It wasn’t long after that, though, when Donayan, 48, was diagnosed with blood cancer. Intense chemotherapy put her in the hospital for a week at a time every three weeks. Defterderian, 52, was there every day by her side.
“I saw her courage and thought ‘Wow, I want to be a part of her,’” he said.
And it was his dedication — and her two teenage boys — that helped get Donayan through her weakest points.
“I couldn’t just quit,” she said. “I had just met this wonderful man that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.”
The couple, who both had previous marriages, continues to run marathons — always crossing the finish line holding hands — and Defterderian also runs 100-mile events in honor of cancer survivors and the 1.5 million who perished during the Armenian genocide.
In June 2010, Defterderian ran the San Diego Marathon and Donayan came to support him. The night before the race, she was in pain and feared her cancer was coming back, even though she was in remission.
That’s when Defterderian showed her a photo slide show. It featured pictures of the two of them and then ones Defterderian had taken of himself standing behind Donayan during her final chemotherapy treatments.
Unbeknownst to her, he was holding signs that read, “Sako loves Sona” and “Will,” “You,” “Marry,” “Me.”
The two are engaged, but haven’t set a wedding date yet.
“I want you to fight,” he told her when he asked her to marry him. “We’re going to have a life together.”
Island Romance
Bambi Leigh Hale had a history of dating the wrong guys. By the time she hit her 30s, she felt like she needed to rejuvenate her life. An email advertising a group traveling to Fiji plopped into her inbox one day in 2007 and the ardent traveler decided to jump on the opportunity.
The cultural immersion trip took the Montrose resident throughout Fiji and included a final stay at an island resort. At dinner on the first night there, a scuba diving instructor at the resort, Ben Fitzsimmons, was convincing guests to try the underwater sport. Hale signed up for the next day’s dive.
Fitzsimmons had made it to Fiji by way of Wales, where he grew up, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Honduras. After graduating from Oxford University, he decided to work abroad. He never came back, preferring tropical climates.
The two hit it off right away with soul-bearing conversations on the beach, but Hale had to return to La Crescenta and her job at a late-night TV talk show. The show took a break in August and she decided to fly back to Fiji to with a two-fold purpose — finish her scuba certification and see Fitzsimmons again.
“After being a sad, lonely girl, you just have to stop and follow your heart,” she said.
The couple dated long-distance for about a year — the island where Fitzsimmons, 33, lived got an Internet connection about two months after they met, making it easier to communicate — with the two flying to visit each other and draining their bank accounts.
They started talking seriously in 2008 about getting married and moving to a Caribbean island to work in tourism together.
Fitzsimmons went out to scout the island and when Hale came to visit, the duo went on a 100-foot dive to see a shipwreck in the Caribbean. Sticking out of the sand inside the ship was a diamond ring. Hale picked it up and turned to Fitzsimmons, who was holding a slate that read, “Will you marry me.”
When the recession hit, the couple worried about the stability of tourism jobs, so decided to scrap the Caribbean and move to Montrose together. They had a small wedding ceremony in Yosemite National Park in 2009. Fitzsimmons, programs manager at the Autry National Center, isn’t a fan of Los Angeles freeways, but he’s adjusted to inland life.
“When you find something that’s just easy, it slaps you in the face,” Hale, 45, said.
Love ride-along
Glendale Police Chief Rob Castro wasn’t supposed to be on ride-along duty one Saturday in April of 1987, but he’s glad he ended up driving around a Cal Poly Pomona student who would later become his wife.
Waiting in the lobby that day was Cynthia DuBois, who had requested a ride-along because a police officer at a public-safety event sponsored by her sorority recommended it. At the end of what she called a “flirty” day, Castro asked her out to dinner and a movie that night.
Castro, who worked the next day, drove in his police car to see her at her parent’s house, where she lived at the time, to check in.
“The neighbors thought we were in trouble with the police,” she said, remembering that she felt embarrassed when he caught her washing her car in grungy clothes.
He fell in love with her independence and goal-oriented nature. Cynthia Castro, now a kindergarten teacher, liked how he had his life planned out. The 48-year-olds have been married for 24 years and they have two teenage boys.
“The main thing that’s really helped us be together as long as we have is just communication,” Cynthia Castro said. “If something’s bothering us, we don’t keep it inside.”
Shape up, fall in love
Because he suffered from high blood pressure and other heart problems, Bill Stadler’s doctor recommended he go to the Cardiac Health Center at Glendale Memorial Hospital and Health Center for monitored workouts.
Susan Hickok is an office worker at the gym and gave Bill Stadler a tour on the first day at the gym and always checked him in for all his visits.
“I lusted for her from across the room for a while,” the 71-year-old Bill Stadler, a retired technical engineer for ABC, said jokingly.
After a few weeks, he got the courage to ask her out. That’s how he tells it.
His wife remembers him giving her his business card and offering to give a tour of ABC’s studios. At first, she wasn’t sure if it was a personal or group invitation.
“I think he’s asking you out,” Susan Stadler, 65, remembers her manager telling her, but she didn’t act on the offer for weeks.
“She kept me on the hook for a while,” Bill Stadler said.
Finally, she took the tour and the two started dating, got married and have now been together for 12 years. They both have children and grandchildren from previous marriages.
“Obviously, it was a good match,” Bill Stadler said. “We get along just wonderfully.”
--
Follow Brittany Levine on Google+ and on Twitter: @brittanylevine.