They went to church together that Sunday in 1948. It was Mildred's 21st birthday, but church was a regular part of their dating ritual.

ASHLEY HENSLEY/DMN

After Mildred Smith and Fred Schaerdel met, she waited for him to break up with a steady girlfriend before she made inquiries.

Saturday nights, they'd go dancing at the VFW Post. Sundays, they'd sit side by side at Trinity Lutheran Church.

"We pray together, we dance together, we cry together, we laugh together," is how Fred Schaerdel sums up 60 years of marriage.

Mildred Smith, tall and graceful, was a model at Mayfair Department Store in downtown Dallas. Fred was tall and dashing; he worked in the service department at Lone Star Cadillac.

Sometime during that Sunday service, probably in the middle of a boring sermon, daughter Linda Sanders teases, Mildred noticed Fred fiddling with something in his hand.

Fred insists that he was not aware he had taken the ring out of his pocket. They had talked about getting married "some- time," and he had bought an engagement ring.

Finally, she saw it. She looked over at him and, as he slipped the ring onto her finger, her eyes filled with tears.

They left the church quickly after the service and celebrated with hamburgers – five for a quarter – at Rockyfeller Hamburgers.

Both are 81. Mildred is still tall and glamorous, with a halo of blond hair. And Fred is still tall and handsome in that rugged way that caused her heart to jump when they met on a blind date.

They were part of a circle of friends who did things together: picnicked at Flag Pole Hill, went to ball games, danced at Lou Ann's on Greenville Avenue.

"All the guys were nice," Mildred recalls. But Fred was extra-nice. "He not only pulled out my chair for me, he pulled out everyone's chair.

"I fell in love with him the first time I saw him."

When Fred and the woman he had been dating broke up, Mildred made discreet inquiries. Pretty soon, she and Fred were steadies.

"I was just a young, innocent boy," Fred chuckles.

He was born and raised in Dallas. She was a country preacher's daughter who came from East Texas to live with an older sister.

During the war, Fred served in the South Pacific as a Navy Machinist Third Class. Mildred riveted B-25 bombers in the North American Aviation plant in Grand Prairie. After the war, she went to work for the department store and took a course at Patricia Stevens Modeling Agency and Charm School. Then they met.

They were married July 24, 1948, a couple of months after he slipped the ring on her finger – in the same church. After stopovers in Corsicana and Galveston, they honeymooned in New Orleans.

"I worked for a year or so after our marriage, until the babies came along," Mildred says. They have three daughters, each born when the family was living at a different address.

"Every time we moved, we had a child," Fred says. "We found out we'd better quit moving."

Meanwhile, Fred moved from the service department to the sales floor at the Cadillac agency, where his handlebar mustache became a familiar sight over the decades.

Even today, friends still call him the Cadillac Man.

The center of the Schaerdels' lives was their growing family. They bought a weekend place on Cedar Creek Lake, about an hour and a half south of Dallas.

"Every weekend, it was like a bed and breakfast," Mildred says. "The kids, and then their kids were all there."

A typical weekend would begin with a Bible reading, then move on to boating, fishing, card games, and cookouts and fish fries with Fred presiding over the barbecue grill.

"Nobody wanted to go anywhere else," daughter Linda says. Sunday evening, the younger kids would sulk and hide. "They didn't want to go home."

The Cedar Creek Lake property eventually became too much to keep up, so they sold it.

But Fred and Mildred still have the whole gang over, or as many as can make it, the second Monday of each month. With three daughters (Linda, Nancy and Christy), 11 grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and assorted spouses, between 10 and two-dozen people crowd into the couple's Lakewood home during the gatherings.

"We turn the dining room table sideways and clear away the other furniture," Fred says. "I cook a brisket or chicken on the grill."

Mildred makes big salads and, for special occasions, a cake. The evening usually ends with a communal card game and pingpong.

Fred and Mildred still go dancing with friends they've known most of their lives. That slowed a bit last spring when Fred suffered a stroke. But he bounced back with the help of an exercise program and Mildred's care.

"A year ago, Mildred broke her arm, and I had to do everything for her," Fred says. "And in March, when I had a stroke, she had to do everything for me."

Fred likes to tell a joke about what keeps a marriage going. "The secret, I always say, is to go out for a candlelight dinner twice a week. ... "

"Wait, wait," Mildred tries to interrupt, but he carries on.

"... She goes on Mondays, and I go on Fridays."

"The real secret," Mildred adds, "is loving and forgiving."

Bill Marvel is a Dallas freelance writer. If you have a True Romance story, e-mail bmarvel@mindspring.com.