John and Marcie Dombrock on their wedding day
I’m a sucker for fairy-tale romances that last forever and hearken back to a simpler time. After interviewing Marcie Dombrock, I wrote this account of her marriage to John, her knight in shining armor. I know all you hopeless romantics out there will enjoy it!
THE TRUCKER AND THE SOAP GIRL
Seventeen-year-old Marcie Phillips and Frances Welch, her friend across the street, were fed up with being jolted awake by the trucker who was renting a room in the Jensen house next to where Frances lived. The trucker’s post-midnight arrivals were announced by a very loud motor that kept running to keep the engine cool. On Halloween, the two girls exacted their revenge—they soaped the windows of the trucker’s car, then scurried away giggling.
Marcie would not have the last laugh. Seven months later, the trucker attended services at the church across the street, the same church where Marcie’s family lived in the basement by virtue of her parents being church janitors. The trucker took a fancy to the cute girl singing in the choir and asked Kenny Jensen, who was a friend of Buddy, the cute girl’s brother, to pass along a message. “So Kenny came over one day and said to Buddy, ‘John wants to meet your sister,’” Marcie remembers. “And they were both pretty disgusted about that.”
A meeting was arranged at a Ladies’ Aid sale and supper at the church. John Dombrock bought a brand new suit, complete with new socks, shoes and underwear for the occasion. It wasn’t new for long. “One of the ladies in the church poured coffee all over his brand new suit,” Marcie says. “I felt so bad for him.”
She also felt bad for herself, having immediately recognized John as the (more…)
Triumph of the Spirit 