Celebrating 60 years of love and family

Judy and Dan met in the mid-1950s, when she was 12, he was 13, and they lived three blocks apart near Broad and Allegheny — she with her family and he at St. Joseph’s House for Homeless Industrious Boys.

“We called it the Hut,” Dan said of his childhood residence. “They had dances every Friday and Sunday, and that’s where everybody gathered, boys who lived there and other kids who lived in the neighborhood.”

Dan and Judy were just friends then. At age 16, Judy married another boy she met at those dances, and Dan was among their guests. She had graduated early from Dobbins Vocational High School and worked as a beautician at Gimbels.

The marriage was not good, Judy said, and lasted as long as 2½ years only because her Catholic faith said divorce was a sin.

Dan was 19 when he also married someone he met at a Hut dance, and Judy and her then-husband were guests. That marriage lasted six months.

Dan’s computer career began at Bayuk Cigars with on-the-job training on big IBM accounting machines that ran on keypunches. Later employers included RCA, Unisys, and finally, Northwestern Human Services, where he was a network administrator.

In 1962, Judy and her friends were out dancing at the Cadillac Club, where Screamin’ Jay Hawkins played. “This guy kept annoying the hell out of me,” she remembered. She saw Dan sitting at another table and asked for his help.

“This is my boyfriend,” she told the pest. Dan leaned into the role: “I gave her a kiss,” he remembers.

Their first smooch didn’t immediately push them out of the friend zone, but from then on, her friends and his went dancing together regularly.

One night, however, no one wanted to go out except Dan and Judy. She suggested Memories in Margate.

“It’s a long ride to Margate, and it’s a long ride home at 3 in the morning,” Judy said with a laugh. “We really got to know each other on that drive. I liked him, and he liked me.”

Judy and Dan, who are now both 82, decided to marry. Not everyone thought it was a good idea.

Judy’s mother, Cecilia, loved her daughter deeply, but would not let Dan into her home.

“Divorce was sin, and she didn’t want any part of that,” Judy said. “She wanted me to stay single for the rest of my life.”

The couple was undeterred. Sixty years ago, on June 16, 1963, the mayor of Delmar married them in a friend’s living room.

Dan’s brother and sister-in-law were the only family present. They and six friends joined Dan and Judy afterward for lunch at an Italian restaurant.

“I loved every minute of it,” said Judy. “It was beautiful,” said Dan. “I kept saying to myself, ‘I’m married, and I’ve married this beautiful woman.’ ”

The couple’s dancing and party-going soon came to a sudden stop: Judy was pregnant.

“It’s hard for me to remember much about those times, except I was happy and I threw up every day, and Dan held my hair back for me when I did.”

“All I wanted was to stay with Judy. I love her so much, you know. I just wanted to make her happy,” said Dan.

Judy’s pregnancy came with a boundary: Her baby would not enter a home where her husband was not welcome. Danny was born, and his grandmother’s door was opened to him and both of his parents. Dan and Cecilia “bonded immediately, because my husband is a really nice guy,” Judy said.

Four years later, the couple welcomed a second son, Drew, and four years after that, a daughter, Dara. They moved from their apartment to an Augusta Street rowhouse, and then to the twin at Cottman Avenue and Claridge Street where they lived for the next 35 years.

In 1976, Judy and Dan had their first marriages annulled, enabling them to have a second ceremony blessed by a priest at Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish in Cheltenham.

Dara was the flower girl. Danny and Drew escorted their mother down the aisle. Judy’s mother was among the 125 guests.

“Our early family life was chaotic, it seemed to move so fast,” said Judy. “I was very active in my church, and very active with my children, whom I took everywhere I went.”

She left Gimbels after 23 years so she could make it to Drew’s bass drum performances and Dara’s softball games at Cardinal Dougherty High School, from which Danny also graduated.

The Cahills played pinochle and board games and, then as now, used any excuse to host a party.

Dan and Judy feared they might lose Dara when she was 19. A horrible headache and vomiting led doctors to discover a brain bleed that required an immediate craniotomy.

After the surgery, Dara worked hard to regain her skills and the entire family helped her. Three months later, she began nursing school at Frankford Hospital, as planned. Drew was in the same program and became his sister’s study buddy — even after he graduated.

Dara is now the ER charge nurse at Holy Redeemer Hospital in Meadowbrook, and Drew is a supervising nurse at Jefferson Abington Hospital.

Danny, an electrician, married and had two sons, D.J. and Nick. Dara married Shawn and they bought a home near her parents. She was pregnant with son Connor when her parents told her they wanted to move.

Everyone agreed there was only one solution: a place big enough for all of them.

Judy and Dan, Dara and her family, and Drew all have separate living quarters at the Huntingdon Valley home they call the Compound. After Danny and his wife separated, he moved in with his sister.

The multigeneration home is party central. Everything from Judy’s annual bowling league party to birthdays and anniversaries are celebrated there.

Judy and Dan’s eldest son was diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer in 2013. In 2019, Danny was about to start a fourth round of chemotherapy when doctors said the cancer had spread. He decided to end treatment, and his family rallied around him.

Danny left home one day that June. His departure was routine, but as days passed without contact, his parents grew certain that their son had died.

Confirmation came in early spring 2022, when DNA technology determined that remains discovered in 2020 were Danny’s. The family rallied around one another.

Classmates from grade school and high school were among those who went to a March 2022 memorial service, which provided some closure. The lingering ache, his parents say, is not knowing exactly what happened after Danny left home. They pray for him every night.

Life is sweet, too. Judy and Dan still party with their friends — and though Judy’s back keeps her from dancing the jitterbug, she sways with Dan on the floor.

Dan finally retired in 2016.

Their family continues to thrive and grow. Dara’s son, Connor, is a senior at West Chester University.

Danny’s son, Nick, is a U.S. Marine and is married to Kassie.

D.J., an electrician like his father, and Laura recently welcomed a baby boy named Drew, after his great-uncle.

Baby Drew, the first of Judy and Dan’s great-grandchildren, will be christened in September by the Rev. Francis Berna, the same priest who blessed Judy and Dan’s marriage on their 25th and 50th anniversaries and christened all of their grandchildren.

Connor will be the baby’s godfather, and family and friends will celebrate at the Compound.

Dan and Judy say both the good times and the hard ones have strengthened their bond.

“I love everything about her,” Dan said of Judy. “She’s so understanding. She’s always looking after me, making sure I’m OK. And she’s there for me no matter what. I’d do anything for her.”

“Dan is the kindest, sweetest person. He anticipates what I need and it’s amazing,” Judy said. “We work really well as a couple, and you can’t do that if you don’t like each other.”