Bob and Sylvia Stevens’ Nearly 70-Year-Old Love Story is Still Being Told

Shakespeare and the theater are a throughline in Bob and Sylvia Stevens’ love story that has spanned nearly 70 years.

This summer will mark 50 years since the two moved to East Lansing, settling just north of the White Hills neighborhood. In that time, they’ve changed careers, developed community, raised children, mourned together and built a bond that has only gotten stronger with time.

The couple shared their history together with ELi in a phone interview.

They met in early 1956 as students at Ohio Wesleyan University. Bob was from the Cincinnati area and Sylvia came from Kentucky.

“I started out as pre-med, which was a mistake because halfway through [his time at the school], I had to change majors or flunk out,” Bob said. “There was a major in radio and television so I switched into there. I really did take advantage of every department in the school except for fine arts and home economics.

“I learned a little about a lot but not a lot about anything,” he said with a chuckle.

Sylvia was studying history, theater, speech and social studies, working towards a teaching certificate. 

Bob and Sylvia first crossed paths in a school production of Shakespeare’s Richard III.  He remembers being late for rehearsal one night, running into Sylvia backstage, and asking the pretty freshman to hold his things while he went onstage.

The attraction was almost immediate.

“She was so fun and full of life,” he said. “It was sort of magical. Sylvia was the answer. All of a sudden, holy smokes…this sounds like Hallmark. Sylvia and another girl auditioned [for the play] and I said, ‘woo hoo, look at this!’ The other girl didn’t make it.”

Sylvia described the attraction as instantaneous and familiar. She still remembers a first thought after meeting Bob.

“He had an injured eye,” she said, “and I had an uncle that I loved dearly who also had an injured eye. My thought was that I would have to get used to that.”

Bob was cast as Lord Hastings and Sylvia as Lady Anne. The play sees Hastings betray Anne to the titular king, but the intrigue stopped at the stage.

“She was a freshman and had this major role,” Bob said. “I held her hand backstage.”

“Yes, you did,” Sylvia chimes in. “You calmed me down.”

Bob and Sylvia were surprised by how easy the relationship seemed. Sylvia said they would sit in the memorial union on campus, drinking coffee and taking tests to determine their compatibility.

“I was absolutely astonished to see that we answered the same way,” she said. 

Their compatibility, perhaps, can be traced back to similar modest upbringings. 

“I lost my father when I was just 10 years old,” Bob said, “and grew up in homes that were multigenerational. This was before social security.”

“In my home, there were four generations,” Sylvia said, listing the people in her childhood home. “Three bedrooms and one bath.”

“I don’t know of families that grow up together and live together like that anymore,” Bob said.

The two went to spring formal that first year and spent time together over the summer.

Once Bob graduated, he became a radio announcer, bouncing around from station to station, he said. But the two stayed together. Bob would drive his 1954 Pontiac hardtop 90 miles to visit campus every weekend he could, crashing at his fraternity house.

It was in that car Bob proposed. They were parked outside the women’s dorm Sylvia lived in her senior year. It wasn’t a terribly long engagement. They married May 30, 1959, honeymooned at McCormick’s Creek State Park in Indiana, and drove back to Ohio so she could receive her diploma.

Going into their marriage, Sylvia and Bob each had a strong desire to build a family together.

“For me,” Bob said, “having lost my father when I was a little boy, I wanted to create the typical mother, father, [and] couple of kids family; living that kind of life.”

Bob remembers seeing all the fathers of his friends descend upon campus during homecoming weekends and would see them having a beer together in the local bar. He wanted to build a family and experience that feeling.

“I can remember having to write an essay in high school about what I wanted to do when I was out on my own,” Sylvia said. “It was to be a mother and have a family, a husband and home. I don’t think it was all that different from what Bob had.”

They started their new life in Cambridge, Ohio where Bob worked at a radio station and Sylvia taught seventh and eighth grades.

“I wasn’t hired until the superintendent had hired all the athletic coaches first and they were sure there were spots,” she said.

Bob would eventually move into civil service, working with the Social Security Administration and moving the family around to a different office every few years.

They welcomed their children Julie in 1960, Rob in 1964 and Suzanne in 1968.

“Each child was born in a different city,” Sylvia said.

The Stevens family arrived in East Lansing in 1975 after Bob was again transferred. They assumed the well-established pattern might continue: Bob would work for a few years and then be transferred to a new office.

Fate had alternative plans.

“Rob was 13 when he died and there were just things that we never really understood what happened,” Sylvia said. “It knocked the ambition out of us.”

Their son’s death brought immense grief but also questions. Rob had hung himself at home. Bob and Sylvia don’t believe he intended to do so, in part because the family had a trip to Disney World planned.

“He had plans for every place we were going to stop and it was within two or three weeks [of his death],” Sylvia said. 

Bob, Sylvia, Julie and Suzanne took the trip together, in what Sylvia remembers as the most difficult experience she has ever had. 

“When there is a death of a child in the family,” she said, “90% of those marriages end up in divorce and it was one of the things Bob and I promised each other after Rob died; when we were establishing new family dynamics, we weren’t going to let that happen.”

It was Rob’s death that prompted the Stevens family to put down roots.

“We realized what a nice place East Lansing was to bring up the kids and our church was a very important part of our lives,” Sylvia said. 

She would go on to earn a master’s degree in English at Michigan State University before working at the university for 15 years. Bob retired from working for the federal government after 33 years. He had a second career as a piano technician, adding 17 more years of work to his resume.

Once their daughters had left home and their careers were over, they didn’t slow down a bit. The couple was “freed up,” Sylvia said and began traveling the world. They enjoyed riverboat trips through Europe. They continued singing with the MSU Choral Union (doing so for 38 years), worshipping at Edgewood United Church of Christ, enjoying season tickets for Boarshead, Williamston and Riverwalk theaters. 

During the covid pandemic, Sylvia was president of Friends of Theatre for the MSU Department of Theatre. 

“There was nothing going on,” Bob said, “but she found ways to support theater and keep the group active.”

“[Theater] has given our lives meaning, dignity and joy,” Sylvia said in response to Bob’s bragging about her work.

The pandemic did bring fresh challenges. The 1,000 piece puzzles and board games they stocked up on quickly became stale and they could only see their daughters and grandchild during Sunday night Zoom sessions.

But the couple got through the seclusion and uncertainty with the same grace and humor that had gotten them through every other challenge they faced together.

“The older you get,” Bob said, “the better you get at picking your fights. We’re usually pretty good at admitting a mistake or apologizing.

“The older you get, the more you appreciate the other,” he continued. “That’s about it in a nutshell.”

These days, they spend their days caring for each other. Bob can’t play golf anymore, he said begrudgingly, and they’re spending more time at doctors appointments.

“He’s just been an absolute brick for me,” Sylvia said. “That gets to ‘better or worse, sickness or health.’ That’s what we’ve promised and that’s what we’ve done.

“I can remember my grandmother talking about when people divorce early, wondering ‘what are they going to discuss when they’re 80 and drinking their coffee?’ I understand what she meant.”

I can’t see Sylvia and Bob during our 90-minute interview, but I can’t help but imagine them sitting side-by-side in their living room, surrounded by a lifetime of pictures and memories. I imagine them holding their landline between them as they occasionally repeat my questions to one another when one of them didn’t hear it.

They’ve been married for more than 65 years, have welcomed three children into the world, and experienced the trauma of losing one they expected to survive them.

But they remain grateful for their lives and excited for opportunities to come.

“More and more the people you grew up around are no longer around,” Bob said. “We’re dealing pretty much with what we’re losing. But I’m looking forward to whatever is left.”