Love at first sight

Story by Sylvia Carrizales

Jan was a shy freshman and Mick was the senior class president who won awards and was also a trumpet player in the marching band.

But they would each catch the other’s attention and begin a relationship that’s as strong as ever more than 40 years later.

Jan and Mick are better known in this community as Chancellor and Mrs. Ferrari, yet few people know about the love story behind their marriage.

Jan Ferrari said her future husband stood out on the campus of the high school they both attended in Monongahela, Pa.

“He was everything in high school,” she said. “Everyone knew of Mickey in high school, and he was pretty cute, I have to admit.”
Jan Ferrari was a majorette, but she had to wait until later in her high-school years to start a friendship with the big man on campus. But she said they definitely kept an eye on each other.

“All the girls kind of ogled him,” she said, laughing. “But I would notice that when I was marching in the band, he would kind of give me the eye.”

She said after Mickey left to attend Michigan State University, they began a correspondence through letters. His first letter came when she decided to try out for head majorette.

“He wrote me a letter wishing me good luck,” Jan Ferrari said. “How he knew (that I was trying out), I do not know.”

When she did not make the position, Mickey Ferrari wrote her another letter to console her.

After that, the letters continued. She still has all of the letters her husband sent to her when they dated.

When the two went out, they spent time playing miniature golf or stopping to eat at the local hangout, the Big Boy hamburger stand. She also remembers traveling to Michigan to visit Mickey Ferrari.

“I would come up to visit him for dances and things like that,” she said. “That was a big thrill for a high school girl.”

But after Jan Ferrari graduated and left to earn a nursing degree at Presbyterian Universty Hospital School of Nursing in Pittsburgh, Pa., she only saw Mickey Ferrari three to four times a year.

But as soon as she graduated, the 21-year-old Jan and the 24-year-old Mickey were married Sept. 5, 1964 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Pennsylvania. She describes the wedding as “very traditional.” They spent a honeymoon in Miami Beach, Fla.
She said she remembers when Mickey Ferrari asked her to marry him.

“I do think he went down on his hands and knees in my mom’s living room,” she said. “He wrapped the ring in a scarf. I wasn’t too excited until I started looking around and found the diamond.”

Jan Ferrari’s voice still cracks with emotion as she speaks about her husband.

“He’s just a very special person,” she said. “He’s a wonderful person. We’ve shared our whole life together.”

She said she has also shared all of her husband’s jobs with him. But while she was still working as a nurse in the evenings, she said they split the responsibilities of their two children Elizabeth, now 32 and a mother of five, including triplets, and Michael, 30, who will get married soon.

When Mickey Ferrari became president of Drake University, she quit her job to travel with her husband and entertain in her home.

“I don’t feel like the university has taken over (his time),” she said.

Jan Ferrari said, unlike others, their marriage works naturally.

“I really respect and admire him and I think that is so important,” she said. “We’ve never had to try. People say you have to work at the marriage but I just sit and smile when they say that.”

Staff members who work closely with the Chancellor and his wife agree that the couple is a team.

Jeannie Chaffee, special events coordinator for the chancellor, said a lot of times, the chancellor’s wife is as busy as he is. Chaffee helps Jan Ferrari to coordinate all receptions and dinners held at the chancellor’s home.

“She goes to all of the functions with him,” Chaffee said. “If it is at the house, she gets the house ready. She has a very behind-the-scenes job but also a very in-front-of-the scenes job. She’s the perfect hostess.”

Chaffee said that together, the Ferrari’s love is evident.

“They’re just as cute as they can be together,” Chaffee said. “They each are very supportive of the other. It would be nice if all marriages were like that.”

Mary Nell Kirk, executive assistant to the chancellor works more with the chancellor, but says the couple is a lot of fun and that his wife is always present at dinners and receptions.

Although she won’t be with her husband this Valentine’s Day because he is out of town with an alumni group, Jan Ferrari said she expects a phone call from him every night.

“He’ll call just to check in,” she said. But, she adds, “He’s not a great talker on the phone.”

For the Ferrari’s, Valentine’s Day is usually celebrated by going out to dinner. Sometimes Jan Ferrari will buy her husband a card and a book, and he will send her flowers.

Jan Ferrari said she would rather her husband work for a university than for another company because she is able to spend a lot of time with him. She travels with him as much as possible, and whenever the university is on break, the couple escapes to their house in Arizona.

Sylvia Carrizales
s.m.carrizales@student.tcu.edu