Fenwick Love Stories
Fenwick Love Stories 2023
Joe Doyle '71 & Shelley Whalen '71 Doyle
Joe and Shelley met in 1967 at the start of their freshman year and officially began their love story that April vacation at the Fenwick Carnival. By senior year, he was quarterback of the football team and she was (literally) his biggest cheerleader. The high school sweethearts married on April 9, 1976 and raised 4 kids, all of whom went to Fenwick and continued their "Fenwick Family" (Joe '97, Katelyn '98, Tara '00, Maura '12). Joe and Shelley spend their retired years in their Peabody home of 35+ years, hosting endless gatherings with their children, family, and friends, including their 9 (almost 10) grandchildren. The friendship and love that started in the Bishop Fenwick hallways flourishes on and they are about to celebrate 47 years of marriage together.
Charles Dunn '90 & Nicole Pinto '90 Dunn
Nicole and Chuck met in 1986 when they were both freshman at Fenwick. They started out as friends, then best friends and by the end of freshman year they were inseparable and never looked back! Nicole and Chuck got engaged in 1996 and got married in 1998 after 11 years of dating! They have three beautiful, successful daughters, two of which graduated from Fenwick, Samantha Dunn, Marguerite Dunn '20 and Katie Dunn '22. After a very busy, chaotic, super fun 24 years of raising them, they are now empty nesters for the most part and are reliving life as it was before kids!
"Fenwick will always have a special place in my heart for bringing us together!"
Michael Abbatessa '80 & Carol Lavoie '80
Our story starts in the Fall of 1976 freshman year first day of school. With nervous excitement new students had lined up for the first day at Bishop Fenwick. Highschool was the next big step in our lives. I was an awkward hopeful football player from Peabody. She was a talented and athletic beauty from Beverly. While we would be acquaintances and teammates at Bishop Fenwick and casual friends, we never connected in a dating relationship. Throughout our four years at Fenwick, we both played sports and contributed to the successful athletics that is a rich part of Fenwick. Carol Lavoie was a softball player, Indoor track hurdler, cheerleader and an actress in school plays. I played football and threw the shot in track and appeared in one play. We traveled in similar circles and have many mutual friends from our time at Fenwick but we never dated. Carol moved to Idaho following her path as a wife and young mother. I followed my path to Umass/Amherst. Years later we both relocated back to the North Shore. Carol to get her Nursing degree and raise her family. I after a divorce having raised my family. As fate would have it we became reacquainted after seeing each other at a gathering. After we rekindled a friendship and became closer and closer after a while a strong bond between us grew into the beginning our Love. As we have grown together in our faith and our love for one another we have decided to marry this Summer.
Fenwick Love Stories 2022
Chris Timson ‘99 & Jena Goodman ‘02
They both started coaching at Fenwick back in 2009, Chris was the boys basketball assistant varsity coach, Jena was the assistant varsity coach for girls soccer under her former coach and fellow alumn, Karen Guilemette. Jena also started teaching at Fenwick that year, and still does! Chris asked the players about Jena but she was dating someone else. When that didn't work out, Jena saw Chris again at a local restaurant and they started dating in the year of 2011. They both were still coaching, and Jena teaching. They were married in 2013, and now have two beautiful children. Their daughter Skylar is 6.5 years old and their son Lucas is 3.5 years old, both attend our sister school, St Mary's! Jena stopped coaching when they had Lucas and Chris went on to have his own varisty coaching position at Danvers High school. They’ve been married almost 9 years now!
Mark Binari '99 & Andrea Leo '99
They met their junior year at Fenwick in 1997. They have been amazing friends for 25 years until they officially became an item the summer of 2020. Mark proposed to Andrea 5 months later and they are getting married March of 2022, and Fenwick’s faculty member, Father Kevin Leaver, will be marrying them at St. John’s!
Robert D’Alessandro '65 &
Maureen Wilson '65 D’Alessandro
Robert and Maureen were both from the class of 1965. They married in August 1968 and had one daughter, Christine, one granddaughter, Kathleen and now one great granddaughter, Anna. They have experienced beautiful 53 years married!
Charlie Jameson '73 & Ann Michaud Jameson '75
Charlie and Ann started dating in 1973 while in high school. They married in 1979 and now have three children, three grandchildren, and three grand-pups after all of these years together!
Chris McCarthy '85 & Charleen Ellis '85
Chirs and Charleen met in 1984 under the library overhang at Fenwick. They got married October 1990 and have had the best 37 years of their lives together!
Paul Balmer '68 & Frieda Balmer
Paul and Frieda met during Paul's freshman year at Fenwick through mutual friends and Frieda went to Peabody High. One day, Paul gets a surprise knock on door. It was Frieda Connolly, she had just gotten her driving license and wanted to know if Paul wanted to go for a ride with her, They went to each other’s Proms, and when Paul graduated, he went into the U.S. Coast Guard for four years. While he was in Bootcamp, he realized Frieda was the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. So in one of Paul's letters to Frieda, he said he was going to give her a hope chest when he got home from Bootcamp. The next letter he received said that the wedding would be the following year and that she hoped that he could make it. So as they say, “absence make the heart grow fonder (or wonder)” in their case it grew fonder! When he came back from Vietnam, and got out of the service, they decided to raise a family. They now have a son and daughter, and three grandchildren. Paul retired as a Quality Product Manager, and Frieda retired as a Bank Branch Manager. In 2019 they renewed their vows on their 50th Wedding Anniversary and are looking forward to celebrating their 75th. Frieda's 50th bouquet had 50 yellow roses for each year of friendship, and five red roses for each decade of love.
Robert Avery '93 & Michelle Batchelder '93 Avery
Rob and Michelle met in their freshman homeroom. They started dating in the summer of 91 before their junior year and graduated in 1993. They got married in 1998 and now have 4 daughters. Michelle is a special education specialist in the Lynn Public Schools and Rob is a Lieutenant with the Lynn Police Department. Their oldest daughter, Olivia, is a 2016 graduate of Fenwick, is a 3rd grade teacher in Lynn Public Schools, and helps produce Fenwick theater programs with Dr. Kellie Tropeano.
Mary-Ellen Hickey '00 Schuster & Adam Schuster
Mary-Ellen and Adam met on September 26, 2009, at a fellow alum's, Tracie Wong '00, wedding. Tracie was marrying Ben Myers (of Denver, Colorado). At one of the table's at the wedding was where her now husband, Adam Schuster (of Denver, Colorado), sat. After the wedding, they talked in Columbus Park on a bench the entire night until he had to catch his plane the next morning to return to Denver. Adam proposed to Mary-Ellen on February 14, 2012 and were married on October of 2012 in the very same Faneuil Hall, where they met at Tracie and Ben's wedding in 2009. Mary-Ellen stated that she prayed to Saint Valentine the same morning of the day she met Adam. They happily and gratefully celebrate a decade of marriage this year. They have two beautiful children, Ben and Annette and live in Denver.
Michael Cipriani '12 & Anna Witkowski '12
Graduates of Bishop Fenwick in 2012, Michael Cipriani and Anna Witkowski will be getting married in June of 2022.
Mike and Anna’s love story began the first day of freshman year when they were introduced by one of their best friend’s in Mr. Mal’s religion class (who will now be a groomsman in their wedding!). Mike and Anna quickly became great friends, always laughing together. Their four year friendship began to be more serious their senior year when Mike asked Anna to prom by putting a note in a fortune cookie. They started dating the next night when Mike asked Anna to be his girlfriend after the senior luau banquet.
Fast forward almost ten years later, Mike proposed to Anna at the waterfront in Boston in September of 2021 and are now counting down the days to their wedding day, where they will be celebrating with many other alumni of BFHS! At Fenwick, Mike was a two time varsity player in baseball and hockey as well as the captain of the baseball team his junior and senior year. Anna was a varsity captain of the volleyball team and played the lead of Velma Kelly in her senior year’s rendition of Chicago. Currently, Michael is the Assistant Athletic Director at Bishop Fenwick and Anna is a full time dance teacher in hopes of opening her own local studio soon.
Christos Douroudis '99 & Leah Goodman '00
Due to covid-19 the pivot game was in full effect. Leah retired from over a 20 year career in skin care and massage therapy and went full time with her paddleboard company, Sup East Coast Style. Christos left the banking, mortgage and corporate world and went full time with their paddle board company 4 years ago that he helped Leah build since they started dating 14 years ago. Now married 9 years later, with their fur baby, the real MVP of it all, Lolo, the paddle pup. Christos and Leah both work full time on the east coast starting their pre-season from May - October and then they head south for the winter to run their off season business of adventure trips while RVing.
Joe Messina '06 & Justina Polvere '06
They met a couple of years ago not knowing each other in high school but having mutual friends. It was as though they missed each other in high school but always had a missing piece in their life story until they met each other. Joe has become a second dad to Justina’s daughter and they are the absolute love of each other’s lives! They look forward to many more years together and are so thankful they found each other again!
Tim Byrne '84
& Laurianne Ellis '84 Byrne
Tim and Laurianne's story begins the fall of 1981, their sophomore year at Fenwick, and a group of their friends going to the Topsfield fair. On one of the loud spinning rides, Tim asked Laurianne out! During the summer of '82, they were constantly together at each other's homes, going to the movies, the mall, and the beach. In 1983, they went to the junior prom but went their separate ways that summer. They crossed paths a few times since high school, but they were always quick hellos. In 1996, they saw each other at a fundraiser in Salem and again in 2009 at their 25th reunion. But in 2016, they were able to really reconnect and began their life together! They married the summer of 2020 and many Fenwick friends joined on their special day. They have 5 children amongst them, 3 boys and 2 girls ranging in ages from 20 to 25, 4 of them still being in college.
"We can’t imagine a life without each other!
As I said in my Fenwick yearbook
“Tim I’ll never forget our four years at Fenwick especially two of them .. you brought so much in my life just by being there when I needed you “ Lucky me now , he is my soulmate .
We complete each other." - Laurieanne Ellis Byrne
Kevin Grocki '89
& Eric Corcoran '89 Grocki
Erin (Corcoran) Grocki class of ‘89, who worked at Fenwick for 12 years, met her husband Kevin Grocki ‘89, their sophomore year, the had been a couple for 10 years and got married in 1997! They will be celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary this Dec. 20, 2022. Their wedding anniversary is almost the exact date of their first date, which was Fenwick’s Christmas cotillion in 1987.