Valentine Vignette: Marc and Diane Siegel

We heard Marc and Diane’s story first from Marc. He remembered living in a Springhill Lake apartment while attending the University of Maryland and meeting Diane Douglas, who lived in an apartment downstairs from his and worked at Beltway Plaza. They dated a while before breaking up. “Then my dad, who liked her, brought her to my graduation,” said Marc. “Other than that I don’t think we would have met up again. We ended up getting married.”
Later we asked Diane for her side of the story.
“I moved into Springhill Lake [from Lanham] when I was about 18. I was washing my car one day and Marc moved in. I immediately called my girlfriend and said, ‘A cute boy just moved into my building.’
“Then I found a note on my car, saying I was cute, and later, I found out it was he AND his roommate who put the note on the car, not just Marc. And one day he was outside playing his guitar. I can’t remember if I went up to him or if he said something first, and we went and got ice cream.”
We asked Diane what she remembered about breaking up and getting back together.
“His sister, Sandy, invited me to her wedding because I’d gotten friendly with his family. I went with him as his date to her wedding. We kept dating, and he moved to a GHI and I moved to another apartment.
“He’d come over for events with my family, so he was there for Christmas Day. I’d told him for Christmas I wanted a new coat. In the box he had a used yellow raincoat, so I thought we’re going to go shopping for a new coat. But he said, ‘No, look in the pockets.’ So I looked in the pockets and found Cracker Jack boxes. I thought, ‘He’s giving me candy.’ He said ‘No, OPEN the boxes.’ So I opened them and he ‒ (and all my family was there) – he had taken the prize out and put the diamond ring into the little prize package and put it into the Cracker Jack box, and I opened it up. So my story is, he never actually asked me to marry him. It was just assumed because he gave me this engagement ring.”
Diane remembered being invited to Marc’s graduation, but that Sandy’s wedding was when they really got back together.
Today, Marc and Diane have two adult children, Tyler and Sydney. Their 39th wedding anniversary will be on April 12.