When a 14-year-old girl paused on the stairs of a dusty grange
hall in the northern California city of McArthur to plant a kiss on
the lips of a stranger, she knew she’d met the man she would spend
the rest of her life with.
When a 14-year-old girl paused on the stairs of a dusty grange hall in the northern California city of McArthur to plant a kiss on the lips of a stranger, she knew she’d met the man she would spend the rest of her life with.
Sixty years of marriage, 38 great-grandchildren and countless hugs and “smack-a-roos” later, Marge and John Albaugh are closer than the day they exchanged vows.
“She never kicked me out of bed at night,” John, 88, joked, explaining what’s kept the two together over the years and giving his wife a playful nudge. Not only that, “she chased all the other girls away,” he said. Jokes aside, John fell in love 60 years ago and hasn’t fallen out since.
“I saw him and decided to marry him,” Marge, 76, said. “Then I did.”
Because of Marge’s youth, she and John – who is 12 years her senior – didn’t go on a date until the night he slid an engagement ring on her finger.
“I was very shy,” Marge said. Somehow this claim doesn’t match up with the bold tale of hers and John’s first encounter.
Marge Albaugh is a woman who wears many hats and she met her match in John, family and friends said. When Marge isn’t winning the Chamber of Commerce Woman of the Year award, throwing her heart and soul into making St. Joseph’s Family Center the organization it is today or working to feed the poor and hungry, she’s spending time with her beloved family. At 16, she became the mother of Bunny, Bonnie and John, the three children John brought to the family from a previous marriage. She and John became parents again when their daughter Judy was born. They rounded out the family by adopting two cousins who needed a home, Pamela and Roy.
“My parents are the best parents God created,” said daughter J. Chris Mickartz, a local businesswoman. “They have hearts as big as the outdoors.”
The Albaughs’ love extends beyond their immediate family. As their lives crept toward the golden retirement years, they threw themselves into projects most people begin in their 20s. In 1982, they happened upon St. Joseph’s, which developed out of a program run by the Catholic Ladies Aid Society, and began adding services, holding clothing drives and distributing food bought on their own dime.
Father Dan Derry at St. Mary Catholic Parish remembered a day when John used to hand out coffee and doughnuts to the hungry. Since then, the program “grew and grew and grew,” Derry said, until it became the second largest provider of food for the needy in South County. The Albaughs played a very large part in that transformation, Derry said.
“As a couple, they have done marvels not just for each other but for other people,” he said.
The two always complemented each other, Marge making things happen as executive director for nearly 20 years and John working behind the scenes, St. Joseph’s Executive Director David Cox said.
“They are the salt of the earth,” he said. “I aspire to be just a small percentage of what they’ve meant to this community.”
“She’d roll up her sleeves with the rest of use,” said Jacqui Merriman, who worked as the pantry coordinator at St. Joseph’s while Marge was director. “She was a great boss. And John was always there when we needed someone to step in and help. They had big hearts.”
Marge and John came from families that believed in the value of time over money, John said. Spurred by a mission to help those in need, the Albaughs are “just good people,” friends and family said.
“The Albaughs are St. Joseph’s Family Center,” Cox said. “She brought in a lot of the volunteers and tied in local businesses. John was the workhorse and rarely if ever stepped forward to take the credit he deserved. They were quite the team.”
“She always gave credit to everyone,” John said, tears forming in the corners of his eyes.
“If you didn’t help me, I wouldn’t be here,” Marge told her husband. “I was blessed with John.”
A construction worker by trade, John Albaugh moved his family to Gilroy from Redwood City in 1974 where he semi-retired, meaning he worked as a handyman for 30 more years, his daughter said with a smile.
“I think he was 84 when we finally convinced him that he shouldn’t be climbing up on ladders anymore,” she said.
A plaque to match his wife’s Woman of the Year award hangs on the living room wall, an honor he received in 1981. A licensed pilot, he used to fly across the country regularly and refurbished a 1929 Model T Ford.
Sitting in their living room surrounded by memories, the couple recalled how they were given a trip to Rome to meet the Pope as a parting gift when Marge retired from St. Joseph’s in 2002. In Vatican City, the couple was surprised when the tickets they held lead them straight to the Pope. The two recounted their delight and reverence in unison, reminding each other not to leave out any of the details.
“John was in tears,” Marge remembered.
“It was hotter than hell in Rome,” John said.
“Did you remember how we left the tickets in the cab?” Marge asked.
“I already said that,” John assured her.
The couple clasped hands as they told the story, Marge’s fingernails carefully painted the same shade of bright pink as her toenails, John’s hands callused by decades of carpentry work.
John still gets up at before dawn to open the door at St. Mary every morning. Then he comes home for breakfast and makes his daily trip to the gym.
“He always greets you with a hug and a huge smile,” St. Mary Office Manager Debbie Pelliccione said.
But he reserves a “smack-a-roo” – a special kiss – only for the woman that kissed him so boldly 60 years ago on that grange hall staircase.
