Unbreakable bonds: An index card isn’t the most romantic prop, but persistence paid off

By Leila Ugincius

From the start of freshman year, Ed and Terry Dadez had chemistry – as in, the academic course. A personal connection? Not so much.

“During the first week of class, I looked across the room and saw Terry,” Ed said of that moment in 1975 at Virginia Commonwealth University. “Something told me that she was the woman I was going to marry.”

Terry had no such visions – and she liked someone else in the class, anyway. As for Ed’s initial overtures, they made a different impression.

“Very nerdy, very nervous, very disoriented,” Terry said of her suitor.

Case in point: One day on the bus, Ed realized they both lived on the MCV Campus.

“I changed my seat to sit right behind her. She was talking to someone about where she lived back home,” he said. “I interrupted and said, ‘I know that area.’ She said, ‘That’s nice’ – and turned to talk to the woman she was sitting next to. I pulled out a 3-by-5-inch card and drew a map to show her how close we lived near each other. She just turned away. I spent the next two weeks trying to get her attention.”

Mission not yet accomplished.

So, Ed asked a mutual friend, Irene Adams (née Wu), if she could set up a study group and invite several people, including Terry. Irene, who later served as maid of honor at the Dadezes’ 1979 wedding, was more than happy to help.

“I was able to get to talk to [Terry] more at each study group, except she seemed to like this guy named Matt,” Ed said. “Our study group decided, after our first test, [to] go out that evening to go dancing and drinking. We took the campus bus over to the bar. As we were getting ready to go in, I turned to Terry and said, ‘I don’t drink and I don’t dance.’ Terry said, ‘Me, neither.’”

They bid farewell to the rest of the group and walked back to the MCV Campus together.

“You name the topic, and we talked about it on that walk back from the Monroe Park Campus to the MCV Campus,” Ed said. “After that, we were inseparable. I was still sure I was going to be with Terry the rest of our lives. It may have taken her a little more time.”

Terry still “wasn’t sure,” she said. “That’s why I just left it up to the world to come to Jesus. See what happens, huh?”

Their 46-year marriage has been highlighted by two sons and numerous academic degrees.

Ed graduated from VCU in 1980 with a double major in biology and psychology, followed by a master’s in college student personnel from The Ohio State University in 1982, a Ph.D. in college and university administration from Michigan State University in 1991 and an MBA in 2002 from Saint Leo University, where he is president emeritus and professor in graduate education.

After two years at VCU, Terry left to care for her mom but completed her bachelor’s in psychology from the University of Dayton in 1984, followed by a bachelor’s in nursing from Bloomsburg University in 1993 and a master’s in human services from Saint Leo University in 2019.

“I think both of us wanted to be a professional and have some sort of effect on the world,” Terry said. “Ed did it through education, and I did mine through nursing.”