It is said that most people will find their true love or their future spouse while they are in college. This is a hard statement to believe, but for two Cabrini alumni and professors, this ended up coming true.
Dr. Dawn Francis and her husband, adjunct professor Dan Francis, were both communication students here at Cabrini.
The two first met in fall of 1990 in Professor Cathy Yungman’s video production class. Dawn Francis was a sophomore at the time and Dan Francis was a junior. For the next few years, they continued taking the same video courses and would always pair up as partners.
“I knew he was really excellent at capturing audio and he knew that I had an capacity for capturing video,” Dawn Francis said. “So when we would go out together on assignments. We developed respect for one another’s talents and then kind of became friends through that process.”
Their friendship continued throughout the rest of college until Dan Francis graduated a year before Dawn Francis did. Although they ended up with each other eventually, the two never dated in college.
During college, the timing was never right for them because they both were dating other people. Eventually, they parted ways.
Dawn Francis graduated Cabrini in 1993 and went straight to graduate school at Ohio University. In that same year, she came home in December for the wedding of a close friend and Cabrini alumna, Roseanne. The soon-to-be-husband of the bride coincidently was living with Dan Francis’ brother.
Roseanne and Dan Francis crossed paths and Roseanne helped the couple get in touch with each other, after she found out that he was interested in Dawn.
For that month of December, Dan and Dawn Francis dated. She eventually had to go back to school to finish up her graduate program and said she would keep in touch with Dan Francis until she would return. This plan did not end up going as well as she thought it would be and ended up staying in Ohio and working full time there.
Three years later, fate brought them back together. Dawn Francis decided that it was time to finally come home because she missed her family and friends. After a month of being home, Dan Francis showed up at her church where she was volunteering and asked for her number.
“A friend of mine knew she was working in the kitchen for a wedding at our church. I stopped by unannounced and told her I was just in the area. I asked for her number, and we started dating,” Dan Francis said.
Within six months of dating each other, they started to look at engagement rings. Dan Francis proposed to Dawn Francis while having a picnic at Valley Forge park. Afterward, they rode around on Dan Francis’s motorcycle to tell the good news to their friends and family.
“Our timing was off at Cabrini because we were both seeing other people, then our timing was off again in December of 1993, but our timing was on in October of 1997,” she said.
They ended up getting married in May of 1999 and have been happily married ever since.
“You never know who you are sitting next to in class who could potentially be that person who is going to be your life partner,” Dawn Francis said.
