How They Met: Martha Townsend and Tia Newhall
Tia (left) and Martha on Rutledge Street in Madison, Wisconsin, circa 1991.
On the High Line in New York City, circa 2015. Photo: Martha Townsend
We both were born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin. Growing up, we had friends and acquaintances in common, but we didn’t meet until the spring of 1988. Tia was working as a substitute math teacher and also as an evening baker at a restaurant called the Ovens of Brittany, a job she had intermittently as an undergrad. Martha took a job as a dinner cook at the same restaurant. It was a really fun place to work, and there was always a group of people going out after the 10 p.m. closing time. Often this group would go hear live music, or play pool, or go late-night sledding (1988-89 was a very snowy Wisconsin winter and we had easy access to sheet trays, which slide like greased lightning, so we did this a lot), or just hang out. We both became regulars at this nightly party and quickly became good friends. Then we started doing things with just the two of us, and although in retrospect it is clear that we were dating, at the time we both saw it only as a friendship.
Through that winter we spent more and more time together as just friends, including an adventurous, if ill-advised, winter camping trip. Winter camping was something neither of us had any experience with, and it could have ended disastrously if we hadn’t found a recently abandoned igloo that was so comfortable we slept until noon.
As spring approached, Martha took Tia to her family’s cabin in Door County, Wisconsin, on the shores of Lake Michigan, a most beautiful and magical place. It was during this trip, in a cabin still winterized, with boards on the windows and the plumbing shut off, and with only a fireplace for heat, that we realized we were more than friends. We’ve been together ever since. In 1999, when Tia joined the computer science department at Swarthmore College, we moved to Swarthmore.
In the fall of 2013, although same-sex marriage was not yet legal nationwide, the Obama administration announced that legally married same-sex couples would receive federal marriage recognition. We could file joint federal tax returns and qualify for social security benefits. Same-sex marriage was not yet legal in Pennsylvania, so we were married at City Hall in Brooklyn, New York, on October 18. After 25 years together, we started our honeymoon phase, and we get to celebrate two anniversaries each year, in April and October.
— Martha Townsend and Tia Newhall
