Well, technically, according to the still shot below from a video by the late Bill Windom, we met on Independence Day, 2010. That's the Henagar-Union Sacred Harp Convention. It was my amazing first week in Sacred Harp. I'd been to the Fort Payne singing the Thursday before, and most singers consider this particular singing pretty much the highlight of the singing year AND, further immersing myself, that very day, as a member of a production team going to capture video, not as a "camper," I spent four days at Camp FaSoLa. To say I had fallen hook, line and sinker, for Sacred Harp singing is an understatement. Everything in my life began tectonic shifting that week, so, here we are, a dozen years later!

As per just about everything major in our lives, Daniel got a head start! He had started singing Sacred Harp just 3 months before this singing. This video finds both of us, embarassingly, in the square. Me, invited by Ruth Wampler to join her with no clue as to what was going on. The still shot I had seen of us leading clearly shows Ruth's hand held high beating time, and my hand down low, beaten BY time! Daniel is seen leading exuberantly, following his nature to just soak up experiences for all they're worth. That was before Shelbie Sheppard got a hold of him at camp! https://youtu.be/ZYTEWGXYxIw

It was a few years later, at Camp Fasola, that Daniel and I ended up at a dining table together. In the course of conversation it emerged that he trusted his health to the exact same SUPER SPECIAL health care practitioner that I did. "Who are you?" I demanded to know-being all up in the middle of my two biggest passions!!!

That was the start of it. After that, we had so much to talk about that we just always sat together at every Sacred Harp dinner on the grounds.

Then we started meeting at restaurants before going to singings together. Pretty soon, my song book just lived in his van. We even made a singing trip to Chicago!

Gillian had just told me that it was a favorite singing of hers and I was too broke to consider it-then all of a sudden, a check came in the mail, and Daniel mentioned he was thinking of going, and I proposed we split expenses! He pondered on it, and sought counsel. Eventually, he offered to get a hotel where he had a business discount on a suite. NOW, mind you-the only hotel suites I had ever been in had two rooms-with a door!!! I was kind of taken aback that it was just a regular hotel room with two queen beds side by side-though it did have a nice kitchen! So, you want to know when Daniel Lee won my heart? He came walking through the door with a Chinese room dividing screen he'd put in the back of the van and places it between our beds!!! Then he proceeded to take things he had canned from his garden and made us soup in the kitchen! In the morning, he asked if I'd mind if he read his daily devotional out loud. Well, all that, and the actual way he drives, had certainly impressed me. Eventually, he called and invited me to a non-singing event. He said "I don' t know how you feel about Theatre, but we always go to Shakespeare in the Park in Nashville and I wondered if you'd like to go?" Um, I have a DEGREE in Theatre! The affinity continued!

As much fun as we were having together I had NO IDEA we were courting!!! I had been seeing somebody, and Daniel was married, though I had no idea they were almost at the conclusion of a very amicable separation. But of course, he did!

It was October 2017, and I had just hosted a wonderful 80th birthday bash for my mother at my father’s place in New Mexico, and was driving across country. Mountain Grove was rented out for 3 days and I knew Daniel had a spare room. Since I was going to drive right past his house on the way home, I emailed and asked if he would mind if I stayed a couple of nights. He kindly obliged, and invited me to stay the third night as well. The next weekend was Philip Denney's singing in Georgia, so he came to stay at Mountain Grove. We went to a party at Pete Haluptka and Lindsay Whitaker's place, then sang at Emmaus and the next day, and there was a tour of homes in Mentone.

Turns out, after two lengthy marriages, Daniel had a LONG checklist for his next companion! Mountain Grove ticked the last box in my favor, apparently ("I had to be sure you weren't leaving some dire situation.")

At lunch that day, you could have knocked me over with a feather when he mentioned his divorce (which I had no idea was in the works) would be final in 17 days, at which time he'd be considering me his girlfriend, and EVER practical, invited me to move in! Gillian Inksetter, our dear singing friend in Canada exclaimed repeatedly "SHUT UP!" when I called her that night and told her what had transpired.

It's not quite as romantic (or shocking?) as it might sound-Daniel knew I was giving up the farmhouse I had kept for the last number of years, and with his soon to be ex-wife already living in Florida, he was trying to figure out how to keep the house in the divorce and having a roommate to share expenses with seemed practical-and he already knew we traveled together well-and if you're a traveller, you KNOW how indicative that can be!

I met him back at his place after the lawyer's meeting two weeks later. He took off his old ring and let me scrub and sage his hand (ya can't be too careful, these days!) and I requested he walk the labyrinth he'd built in the yard where their wedding ceremony has been, in an "un-doing" ritual and then to meet me by the fire.

We prayed, and had a great dinner, and I've basically never left.

On Valentine's Day 2019, he proposed, even after his charming attempts to woo my parents ended in flame.

I've never known anyone as accepting and easy-going as Daniel. He stays centered and in control regardless of what's going on. Nothing disturbs his grounded strength. My tornados and tizzies don't phase him.

Soon after we got engaged, we took a weekend seminar for engaged couples. Part of it was a LENGTHY online assessment we completed separately. The hundreds of answers were collated and graphed. It was the head of the Psychology department at Southern Adventist University who reviewed the results with us. She showed us page after page where our printed graphs were perfectly in line or perfectly balanced. "Rarely, have we seen a couple with such affinity!" Cementing what we'd already figured out-We really love to do the same things, the same way, at the same time!! It's bliss! I've known love before, but AFFINITY!?Totally Next level!! Running with Daniel is pure joy.

We tried to get married in May of 2020 on an amazing Alaskan Dream Cruise we’d chartered with 65 of our singing friends. That and the rest of the world shut down before we got there.

Because Sacred Harp is so important to us, individually, as well as as a couple, we wanted to wait to get married till we could add the singing back in. Come join us ‘round the square!

I liked him before I loved him and I loved him before I knew what an amazing man and husband he is/will be!

He's the consumate provider. He takes care of every living thing around him, wooing crows and feral cats, naming spiders and wood-peckers, planting and harvesting organic goodness, keeping our houseplants fed and watered, year-round, inside and out. He's the designated "animal issues" person and handles them all from pesky housefly, to insuring the armadillo invasion was quelled, and the garden fence situation was deep enough to keep burrowers out!

As Miss Sylvia, our revered health care provider said of him "He's so productive!" She has such a wonderful way with words and that is a great word to describe Daniel! He constantly tried to improve every system he's involved with and there seems to be nothing he can't do, make, or fix. He approaches "situations" with a firm reliance on God, and a productive lifetime of tools, skills, and experience. He's never flustered, upset or even seemingly perplexed. He just handles it.

Speaking of "handling it," For the last two years he has been heating our house with scrap hickory wood from the handle factory near the houses he's worked on. He'll get there before he goes to the job, fill the bed of his truck with whatever their early morning has wrought, and then on his lunch break he'll come for the next load, and then AFTER work, he's back to fill the truck, then he has to unload it, bring it in and stack in, oh, and keep a fire going about 6 months of the year to heat our home!

He fixes any issue that comes up in the house and if I can dream it up he can make it happen! I pondered on a kitchen storage idea and came home to a brilliant floor to ceiling wooden pantry with a built in space especially designed to house our regulation sized backgammon board, which he slides out every night for our evening's entertainment.

We intersperse our three games with a reading from our daily devotional book, and a selection from one of our other spiritual texts.

When he seemed eager to go straight from one committed relationship to another, I said, don't you want some free time, to roam the field, sow some oats and such like???" "Girl, you're saving me from all that!"

As true-hearted as they come, he loves being married and eagerly accepted my "man-gagement" ring as "protection!"

Thank you so much for celebrating with us. We are so happy that you are! Please let us know if you need any help making plans! And don’t forget: in spite of having a gift registry, your presence is the gift we want!