After 20 years together, enjoying ‘the good stuff’

New Jesuit Volunteer Corps trainees packed the retreat center on the first day of orientation, but Donna Kelly’s eyes kept finding the same tall, dark, and handsome man on the opposite side of the room.

“Who is that?” the recent St. Joseph’s University grad from Lansdowne wondered to herself. To Donna’s delight, she soon met Nick Romero, a Californian and recent graduate of Santa Clara University. When she wasn’t teaching high school English and he wasn’t tutoring students working on their GEDs, they and the other Jesuit Corps volunteers working in New York would meet at Times Square and explore.

The more she got to know Nick, the more Donna liked him. Reconnaissance was in order. “I asked his housemate, Karen, what his situation was,” she remembered. Karen’s report: He’s a wonderful guy who just broke up with his college girlfriend.

Karen later asked Nick what he thought of Donna. “I said that Donna was cute, and that she was friendly and outgoing,” he remembered.

Karen’s question planted a seed, but it took awhile to sprout.

As the end of their one-year commitment approached, both Donna and Nick decided to extend their service. She remained with JVC and he found his own gig, but they both wound up at Nativity Mission Center, a Jesuit middle school for boys, where he taught math and science and she taught language arts and drama.

Donna was glad to work with her friend and was sort of resigned to the fact that Nick wasn’t interested in anything more. But after a few weeks of teaching on the same faculty, Nick realized he was interested in Donna. He was trying to be patient: “I thought since we were working together, we probably shouldn’t date, and I would hold off on asking her out until the end of the school year.”

Donna didn’t have a classroom, giving her a solid excuse to keep her things in Nick’s room, then stop by to get them. During recess, she graded papers by the basketball court. After shooting hoops with the boys, Nick would talk to her. School year 1999-2000 had barely started, and everyone at Nativity Mission – teachers, principal, and students – could clearly see there was something between Ms. Kelly and Mr. Romero.

“Oh Mr. Romero-o-o, what do you think of Ms. Kelly?” the students would ask him. They were friends, he said. That was always her answer to such questions, too.

That October, Donna, Nick, and their friends were at a dive bar when some guy tried to chat up Donna, noting her height and calling her an Amazon. Nick saw she was uncomfortable and put his arm around her. “This is my girlfriend,” he told the guy. “That’s a princess you have there – treat her like a princess,” the man said.

Their first kiss was later that night. Nick has addressed all cards and love notes to “Princess” ever since.

The next school year, Donna took a job at at Loyola School. Nick remained at Nativity Mission and went on to become principal.

Nick kept trying to plan something special for October 2001, but Donna’s schedule kept interfering. An interview at NYU, where she earned a graduate degree in educational theater. Her role in a not-great independent movie and the constantly changing schedule for when she was supposed to say her two lines. Finally, he got her out of the city to Bear Mountain State Park.

“Let’s go for a walk,” he suggested, making Donna happily suspicious. They climbed to the lookout.

“What do you think the biggest surprise has been over the past two years?” he asked her.

“It’s just surprising that we’re together, being from completely opposite coasts,” she said. “But we were raised the same way, with similar morals and values,” she added.

Nick agreed. “I always had this vision in my head of a house with kids and dogs in the front yard,” he said. “As we’ve been dating, that vision has gotten clearer and clearer – and the clearest part of it is you.” He knelt. “Ms. Donna Kelly, will you marry me?”

She would.

On Oct. 5, 2002, the couple, who are now both 46, were married in a traditional Catholic service at Donna’s family’s church: St. Philomena in Lansdowne. “We were both teaching at Jesuit schools at the time, and the president of her school, who was also a former JVC volunteer, and the founder of my school co-presided,” said Nick. “Another friend who is a Jesuit brother sang.”

A reception for 150 followed at the Twentieth Century Club. Donna and Nick sat at the front of the room at a sweetheart table. “Sitting together and seeing all of these people from all over the country – our college friends, our families, our JVC roommates – that were all there for us, that was a special moment to take in,” said Donna.

The couple has two children: TJ, 15, and Kelly, 12. Donna was pregnant with TJ when, on a visit to her parents’ home in Springfield, Delaware County, Nick had an epiphany: They could much more easily afford a home and childcare in the Philadelphia burbs than in Jersey City.

In 2007, Nick was hired at the Haverford School, where he teaches seventh-grade math and coaches middle school basketball and intramural volleyball. Donna worked at Villa Maria Academy for five years and has spent the past 11 at Friends Select School, where she is drama department chair and teaches drama and public speaking to middle and high school students. They and their children live in Drexel Hill with two dogs, Calvin and Hobbes.

When Nick’s parents, Bob and Celia, retired, they moved from California to be close to Nick, Donna, TJ, and Kelly. “Having both sets of grandparents nearby was a gift for the kids,” Nick said. His parents also became best friends with Donna’s parents, Dave and Terrie. Celia died in 2020. When she was ill, Terrie, a retired school nurse, cared for her.

Donna and Nick have always loved the outdoors. For the past five summers, they and their children have gone to Family Camp in Vermont, where there’s no WiFi, but plenty of time for campers of all ages to paddle kayaks, hike, and do archery, yoga, and arts and crafts.

Nick plays volleyball in a league. Donna acts in local community theater productions and will play Margaret in the Players Club of Swarthmore’s production of Much Ado About Nothing, which opens in March. They also spend lots of time at their children’s events: Kelly plays lacrosse and field hockey and TJ rows.

Four months after their 20th wedding anniversary, they still really enjoy each other’s company. “We sometimes do just like to be at home on the couch with a good snack,” said Donna. Favored snack: Kelly’s chocolate chip cookies.

“It’s not an understatement to say he’s the best person I know,” Donna said of Nick. “He is so kind and patient – an amazing dad. He listens to me. I love to beat myself down, but he builds me back up. In Jesuit education, we talk about being a person for others. He really is a man for others.”

Nick said Donna is his perfect partner. “If there’s anything I need, I can ask her for it, whether it’s advice on something or help,” he said. “She has the ability to help me decompress a little bit but also, in a great way, she’ll push me to help me see things in a different perspective. And she’s a great mother for our kids, as I knew she would be. It’s how well she listens to them and, through what she says and does, they know they are so loved and so supported.”

All Donna and Nick want to do is savor their last two years with the family living under one roof before TJ heads to college. Nick predicts it will go as fast as the kids’ early years did. Donna agrees. “Our children are healthy and thriving. Our marriage is healthy and thriving. We don’t want to look forward because this is the good stuff.”