On Tuesday, Nov. 1, 1966, Jeffrey Bartell saw his future wife for the first time in a black and white photo on the 11th page of the Daily Cardinal.
There, on the right side of the page, Jeff stared at an exquisite beauty, pictured with a cute flippy bob parted to the side, her lips rounded in a warm smile. Above the photo, Jeff read her name, Angie Baldi.""
At the time, the Cardinal was profiling the Wisconsin Homecoming Queen Candidates, and Jeff liked what he saw.
""This is a nice-looking group,"" Jeff remembered thinking as he circled the pictures of a couple of the attractive co-eds.
But Angela stood out.
It wasn't just her striking looks that caught Jeff's eye. The short biography under her picture intrigued him, especially when he read the last sentence: Angela ""especially loves playing the piano."" Jeff did too.
The Daily Cardinal described Angie Baldi, then 20, as a Milwaukee native and member of both the Delta Gamma sorority and Sigma Epsilon Sigma, the women's honorary society. She was also a cheerleader.
Soon after seeing Angela's picture, Jeff, 23, attended ""Yell Like Hell,"" a homecoming pep-rally, in hopes of seeing her in person. Through the dense crowd packing Langdon Street Jeff spotted Angela, her leg in a cast, leaning on crutches. She had just broken her foot cheering at the Ohio State game.
""But she was still awfully cute,"" he remembered thinking.
The next day, Jeff went to the football game and wandered down the stands to check her out again. Soon after, he gave her a call at her sorority house. Posing as a Daily Cardinal reporter, Jeff told Angela his name, said he was writing a follow-up story on her Homecoming candidacy and asked her to meet him at the Memorial Union for an interview.
""It wasn't a complete lie. I was Jeff Bartell, which was true, and I did want to interview her. It's just I didn't have any connection with the Daily Cardinal,"" Jeff said.
The two met at the Memorial Union in front of the fish tank. Angela came and saw Jeff's face as he peered from behind that special issue of the Cardinal, the one that had Angela's picture on page 11.
""Angela?"" he said when he saw her appear on her crutches - as though he hadn't seen her before.
""Jeff?"" she said to the ""cute fellow with the curly hair.""
The two grabbed some coffee and sat down for the ""interview.""
""Jeff had the newspaper with him and he said, 'This says you play piano.' And then he proceeded to talk about how he played in dance and rock bands, giving me all these interesting details,"" Angela recalled.
The two then had a long conversation about their similar interests, which also included horseback riding. After some time, Jeff finally confessed that, no, he was not a reporter, and no, he wasn't on the staff of the Daily Cardinal.
""I know,"" Angela said. ""You haven't taken any notes. And I think I learned more about you than you did about me.""
Jeff then asked her out to dinner, and Angela agreed, even though she had a steady boyfriend at another campus.
""I thought he was cute,"" Angela said. ""I might have been more cautious, but he seemed like a reliable guy, a law student and all.""
Soon after, the two had their first date, dinner and a movie at Hilldale Theater, where they saw ""Dr. Zhivago"" with Omar Shariff.
It wasn't too long after that Angela sent her other boyfriend his pin back - Jeff and Angie were rapidly falling in love. It was on their second date that both of them knew already they would marry each other.
On that second date, Jeff invited Angela home to meet his parents. He grew up in Madison, and his parents met at the university. His father was a faculty member in the Communications department, and his mother worked for WHA, the university radio station. Jerry and Joyce Bartell watched as Angela sang and Jeff accompanied her on the piano. The Bartells were quickly charmed by Angela, as was their son.
When Angela came home to the Delta Gamma house on Langdon later that night, she told one of her sorority sisters that she had just come back from a date with the man she was sure she going to marry.
""I like to say I married my accompanist,"" Angela said. ""And we've been making beautiful music together ever since.""
The couple married just two years later in August of 1968 at the Madison First Unitarian Society. Jeff had just finished law school and was about to start his first job at the Attorney General's office, and Angela was starting law school, after falling for a particularly ""cute, curly haired law student."" She proved equally as talented, retiring recently from her 30-year career as a Dane County Circuit Judge.
The couple has stayed involved with the university to this very day: Jeff is currently a member of the UW Board of Regents, and the Bartells continue to visit the Union for ice cream and fudge-bottom pie.
