Love and family have helped them thrive

Lisa Ortiz & Louis “Rich” Ortiz

Lisa had just moved to the Edgewater Park apartment complex, but she already knew Rich was the most popular boy around.

She was 12. He was 11 and had spent time with many of the neighbor girls their age and sometimes, their older sisters.

The evening of the summer 1977 day Lisa met him, she opened her photo album and wrote “I will marry Rich” inside the front cover.

Lisa was too shy to tell Rich she liked him, but she told his best friend. The next day, Rich was at her apartment door, so close she could smell his Agree shampoo.

“This is really going to happen,” she thought.

“She was the prettiest girl I knew, and because of that, she got a lot of attention. But she didn’t really seem to want that attention,” Rich said. He found that so interesting.

Rich liked to be at the center of everything, to clown around and make people laugh. But he was used to girls approaching him, and was a little nervous when he knocked on her door. Then they were talking, and it was easy.

They spent the summer at the roller rink and the theater across the highway – Saturday Night Fever was their first flick. One afternoon just before school started, Rich stepped onto the curb so he was the same height as his then-taller girlfriend and kissed her.

Such was life for a joyful year. Then Rich gave Lisa some devastating news: His family was moving to a house in Willingboro, N.J. – more than three miles away and in a different school district.

“I thought that was going to be it,” Lisa said.

But in the heat, the rain, and once during a snowstorm so bad they canceled school, Rich rode his bicycle to see Lisa.

The young couple saw that differences between their homes went well beyond Rich’s new address.

His mom was a licensed practical nurse for the county and his dad, a truck driver. He had everything he needed and almost everything he wanted.

Lisa’s mom waited tables and took every double shift she could, but the electricity went off sometimes. And sometimes, Lisa and her brother were hungry.

When his parents were at work, Rich would pack groceries from the cupboards and refrigerator. “I would take some to Lisa for her family,” he said.

That’s not all, adds Lisa. When there wasn’t change for the laundromat, he would bike home with her family’s dirty clothes and bring them back clean. “Most boys wouldn’t even think to do that. I didn’t have a father, and so I never even had a man do anything that nice for me before,” Lisa said. “It made me feel loved.”

She was loved, said Rich, who would learn his parents bought extra groceries so there was enough to share.

“She is a genuinely good person. She accepted me for who I was, and she always made me feel good about myself.”

Shortly after Rich’s senior prom, the couple learned Lisa was pregnant, and the future they were planning was starting now. Lisa moved in with Rich’s family. He joined the Army and became a cook. His first base was Fort Dix. He was allowed to go to church on Sunday so he always went -- in the front door and out the back, to spend an hour with his wife and baby.

When Raquel was six months old, Rich learned his next assignment could be overseas. He called Lisa and asked, “Will you marry me?”

They wed in August 1983 at Corpus Christi Church in Mount Holly. Lisa’s mother had also recently married the man Lisa calls Dad, and he walked her down the aisle. The couple and 100 guests celebrated in the church’s social hall afterward, the food a gift from a friend of the groom’s mother.

Rich found a way around that overseas assignment, but right after the wedding, the little family drove to his new base in El Paso, Texas. Then, after a stint in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, he left the Army and any lingering desire he had to be a chef behind.

Back in Jersey, son Ryan was born and Rich began to work in the model of his father – as much as possible. He is now a chemical operator at Johnson Matthey, a precious metals refinery.

He and Lisa were both thrilled when she became pregnant for the third time. Then came the most challenging period of their marriage.

Two months into the pregnancy, doctors found a problem with the placenta. “I could die, and the baby could die,” Lisa said. “I wanted the baby, and I was willing to risk my life.”

Rich did not want to lose her, and he did not want his children to lose their mother. He pleaded with Lisa to protect the family they already had.

Lisa was determined. She began bed rest interrupted by weekly appointments with a high-risk pregnancy specialist. One night six months into the pregnancy, Lisa thought she had lost control of her bladder. When Rich pulled down the covers to help her, he found a pool of blood. She was hemorrhaging.

The couple called their pastor, who came to the hospital to pray with them. During an emergency C-section, Rich saw baby Anjelica’s tiny hand and wept.

She weighed less than two pounds. Now, Lisa was afraid. “I had had these big, healthy babies. She was so small. I was afraid to bond with her for the first few days.”

Rich reassured Lisa, and he took her to the hospital every day so they could see their beautiful tiny girl, who grew and grew and then finally came home.

The couple live in Pine Hill in a home that began as a three-bedroom ranch, but grew along with their family.

Space was added for Raquel’s two sons, Tyler and Mason, and Anjelica’s son, Noah. And then the basement became an apartment for Lisa’s parents.

Lisa, who is now 56, raised her children and then helped raise her grandchildren while their mothers worked. She has had a series of health problems. She is on disability. But back pain and neuropathy have not stopped her from channeling her energy into her family. “From the time I was a kid, I wanted to be a wife, a mom, and a grandmom. That’s what my dream was, and I got it,” she said.

Eventually, son Ryan got his own place. And, just months apart two years ago, Raquel and her children moved in with then-boyfriend Kris and his daughter Isabelle, and Anjelica and her son moved in with then-girlfriend Samantha.

When Anjelica and Samantha got engaged, Rich, now 55, got ordained so he could perform their wedding ceremony.

Last weekend, Raquel and Kris married in a small COVID-19 safe wedding in their backyard, and Rich proudly performed their ceremony, too.

Two years ago, when the noisiest of houses first became quiet, Rich and Lisa realized they had some work to do. “Suddenly, we were not talking about kids and grandkids 24/7,” said Lisa. “It was just us, and we had to get to know each other again.”

They started dating a second time – dinners and movies, and then camping in a rented camper – sometimes with the crew, but often just the two of them, in some beautiful spot in nature.

Both really liked the person they rediscovered, and their new hobby, too. Later this week, they’ll take the camper they bought in 2015 and celebrate their 37th anniversary on a Maryland beach.

“You fall in love with a heart, and he’s got such a heart,” Lisa said of Rich. “I love to watch him as a father. And he’s such a great husband. He still makes me laugh, and he makes our kids laugh.”

Rich says he’s the fortunate one. “Lisa is always thinking of me. She has my back, and she does these little things to show me she loves me. When she goes to the store, she buys me cherries. I love to watch the Eagles on Sunday, and she will cut up some cheese and pepperoni for me, and let me watch TV all day long.”

“I love to take care of him,” said Lisa.

“It’s like I’m still special,” said Rich.