Dance class at St. Pius X led to wedding bells for couple

   
    George Foltz was leaning against the stage of the Msgr. Screen Gymnasium at St. Pius X Parish in 2010, wondering when he would decide to dip his toe into the water.
    A few feet away from the 59-year-old lifetime bachelor, a circle of men and women waited for their initial instructions from swing dance instructor Darlene Allen. Turning her head in Foltz’s direction, Allen seemed to have spied the one lost sheep.
    “Are you going to join the group or hold up the stage?” Allen said, encouraging Foltz to step into the circle.
    “I really didn’t know anybody, and I wasn’t sure whether I really wanted to be there,” Foltz recalled, laughing. “But when I stepped out on the floor, Darlene told everybody to take a partner, and Ali came over.”
    Ali – Alison Armbruster – is as outgoing as Foltz is analytical and measured.
    “I saw an available adult under the age of 65!” Armbruster said with a smile. “I saw somebody more my age.”
    That they both were there that night was nothing short of a miracle. Each had been a long-time member of St. Pius X and had served separately in a variety of ministries. Foltz was a lector, usher and extraordinary minister of holy Communion, and Armbruster was a lector and a member of the choir.
    But they were two ships passing in the morning: Armbruster usually attended the 11 a.m. Sunday Mass, and Foltz went to the 12:30 p.m.
    They had never laid eyes on each other.
Many twists and turns
    That they still were St. Pius parishioners at all was even more amazing. After growing up in St. Pius, Armbruster, a dental hygienist, was a parishioner at St. Dominic in Lakeview from 1999 until Katrina destroyed her home in 2005. Then when her father suffered a stroke and was losing his eyesight after Katrina, Armbruster moved into her parents’ home in Lake Vista, which had not been damaged in the hurricane, to help care for her dad.
    Just before Katrina, Foltz and his brother Stephen, who run a company that produces Reising’s bread crumbs, had moved their factory from Mid-City to the West Bank. That was providential, because the Mid-City factory flooded during Katrina.
    But in November 2005, three months after Katrina, Foltz and his brother were considering joining a parish closer to their Harvey home. They felt it was important first to inform Msgr. Clinton Doskey, then the St. Pius pastor, about their intentions. They met Msgr. Doskey outside the rectory after Mass.
    “He was on the cell phone, but he said, ‘Oh, the Foltz boys are here. I’ve got to go,’” Foltz said. “He greeted us so warmly. We told him our story – everybody has a Katrina story – and we told him what we were considering doing. He told us, ‘Oh, I would really feel so badly if you left. I would love for you to stay.’ We told him, ‘Well, if you feel that way, we’ll make the effort to keep coming.’”
    Looking back, Armbruster said, it is amazing to see the twists and turns that led to them finally meeting.
    “We both believe that God brought us together,” Armbruster said. “This was totally orchestrated by God. There were so many times in the road to our meeting that we could have taken such different paths.”
Wasn’t exactly a novice
    Foltz had taken a few dance lessons when he was younger, so he was intrigued when he saw the notice in the St. Pius bulletin about the dance classes. He knew enough to distinguish among West Coast and East Coast swing, the waltz, the fox trot, the cha-cha and the salsa.
    Armbruster had never really danced in her life.
    “I always loved to watch my mom and dad dance,” Armbruster said. “My dad was a fabulous dancer – just a natural talent. They grew up in the ’30s and ’40s, and he never took lessons. My mother says he just had natural rhythm, and he was always the best dancer. They were married for 67 years. I always wanted to do it, and the bulletin announcement said ‘no partners required.’”
    Armbruster attended the first dance class with her sister, but Foltz wasn’t there.
    “I enjoyed it so much, I decided to come back the next week,” she said. That’s when Foltz was invited into the circle and had Armbruster as a partner.
    “I was focused,” Armbruster said. “I wanted to learn to dance. I always thought it was so funny. I would come home after class, and my dad’s sitter would say, ‘He’s the one for you, Ali.’ I told her, ‘He’s just a nice man I dance with.’ I had no vision of it going beyond the dance floor. Then, when we finally started dating, she said, ‘He’s really the one.’”
    After classes, Foltz, Armbruster and others from the St. Pius group went to Rock ‘N’ Bowl for regular Wednesday night dancing. One “swing” led to another, and before anyone knew it, they were in danger of being a couple.
Soaring at Upperline
    Their first real “date” – on July 10, 2010 – was an evening dinner at Upperline Restaurant.
    “I think he asked me by email,” Armbruster said, smiling. “Between dance nights at Rock’N’ Bowl, we would correspond by email. We hadn’t started texting yet. He sent me the most beautiful emails. He actually signed one, ‘Love, George.’”
    “It took me a long time to work up to the word ‘love’ at the end,” Foltz said.
    Something stays with Armbruster from that first date. She ordered a Manhattan, and Foltz said he would have one as well.
    “Oh, my gosh, you drink Manhattans?” Armbruster asked him.
    “I don’t know,” Foltz replied. “I’ve never had one.”
Father could tell
    When Foltz went with Armbruster to visit her father, he could size up Foltz immediately despite not being able to see him.
    “My dad had a stroke years ago and he had macular degeneration, so he couldn’t really see,” Armbruster said. “He knew by George’s handshake and talking with him that he was a great guy. He thought the world of George. So did the sitter. Everybody was sure but me.”
    Then one night after Rock ‘N’ Bowl, Foltz walked Armbruster to her car. He always opened the door for her.
    “He was standing at the door and I heard him say, audibly but quietly, ‘I love you,’” Armbruster said.
    “I just blurted it out,” he said.
    “I totally blanked out,” Armbruster said. “I don’t remember anything. I think I said, ‘Well, OK.’”
    Months later, when they both had declared their love for one another, Armbruster said she had a confession for Foltz. She said she was so sorry she hadn’t responded to him that night.
    “You responded,” Foltz said. “It was a very happy, ‘Well, OK.’”
    Marriage initially was the furthest thing from Armbruster’s mind. She had been married for 15 years but had never dated after going through a divorce in 2002. She has no children.
    “I had patients and friends who wanted to fix me up, and I said, ‘I’m not ready,’” Armbruster said. “My life was my family and my work. I’ve been a hygienist in a continuing practice for 35 years. I love what I do.”
Msgr. Doskey helpful
    But after she began to fall in love with Foltz, she decided to go through the annulment process, which was finalized last December. She said Msgr. Doskey was extremely supportive of both of them before his death in 2011.
    Armbruster will never forget Msgr. Doskey walking to her father’s house on a hot day in 2011 to administer the sacrament of the sick. He walked to the house because Lakeshore Drive had been closed off, and he couldn’t figure out how to get there by car.
    “The sacrament was beautiful,” Armbruster said.
     Armbruster said Foltz also was a rock during her annulment process.
    “It was very stressful and very emotional,” she said. “But George kept saying, ‘God brought us together, and he’s going to see us through this.’ He was so right.”
Finding the right person
    Foltz said he had seriously considered marriage in his earlier years, but he “just never found the right person. I thought it was always possible, but I hadn’t really pursued it. It’s kind of late in life, but I found the right person.”
    “Ali is, well, so warm and open,” Foltz added. “She’s like a breath of fresh air. I know that sounds cliché, but she’s just this bright, wonderful person. I hadn’t really experienced that with anyone else.”
    “What impressed me about George is that he’s so gentle and he’s got a great sense of humor,” Armbruster said. “We share a love of music and coffee. George has a very calming influence. That’s what attracted me to him. This was all pre-ordained by God.”
    Father Pat Williams was the celebrant of their wedding Mass April 6 at St. Pius X Church. He recounted all the right steps they had taken to get to the altar, almost as though they had danced the perfect waltz.
The waltzing Foltzes
    At their reception – at Rock ‘N’ Bowl – they did just that, dancing a waltz for the first time as husband and wife to the Anne Murray song, “Could I Have This Dance?”
    Armbruster wore three-inch heels because “the shoes just happened to match the dress.” Foltz told his future wife, “If you fall, I’ll fall with you.”
    They’ve fallen, and found, each other.
    Foltz has changed more than his marital status. He’s also changed dentists.
    “I have a favorite hygienist,” he said.
    Peter Finney Jr. can be reached at [email protected].