Some people are married to their career. Gwen Shrift was one of them.
As a journalist, she spent nearly 40 years telling other people’s stories. One was about a guy named Terry Nau, another journalist married to his work.
Back in 2015, he was looking for publicity for his latest self-published book when he reached out to his former employer, the Bucks County Courier Times.
Who could have guessed that it was the start of a love story for the ageless.
They were two Bucks County kids who wanted to tell stories
Shrift, 72, and Nau, 77, grew up in the Golden Age of Lower Bucks when young adults expected to marry shortly after high school, buy a house, raise children and grow old together.
Nau graduated from Pennsbury High School in 1965, then took a job at the Fairless Works steel mill like his old man to save money for college.
A year later, the Vietnam War intruded. Nau was drafted into the Army like many in his graduating class. He served in an artillery unit near Tay Ninh and Cu Chi in 1967 and 1968.
After the war he went to college, then started working as a reporter. He worked briefly at the Bucks County Courier Times and later its sister paper, the Doylestown Intelligencer. In 1982 he took a job at a Pawtucket, Rhode Island newspaper, eventually working his way up to sports editor before accepting a buyout and retiring in 2012.
Journalism is a strange career. More of a vocation, really, with long days, weekend and holiday assignments; early morning and late night calls for breaking news. It can be frustrating, stressful and occasionally dangerous work.
A newspaper salary was good enough for him, but not enough to support a family or buy a home, Nau said.
But it’s also an exciting, rewarding and fulfilling life, he said. Some days he’d wrap himself up in a story so tight he’d forget everything else around him like a wife and kids and all the commitments that come with them.
“It was never really on my radar because I was busy doing what I loved,” Nau said. “I was a sports fan who was doing a job that involves sports, and so I just missed the boat.”
In retirement, Nau found that he still had stories left to tell.
He started writing books. His second self-published effort released in 2015 told the stories of 15 Pennsbury High School graduates killed between 1965 and 1971 in the Vietnam War.
Nau knew no one at the Courier Times in 2015 when he cold called a reporter there with the same last name as a high school friend.
Nau’s name and number found their way to Shrift’s desk.
How Terry met Gwen: Business before pleasure
As a writer for the features section, Shrift was the dedicated and award-winning Courier Times staffer who interviewed local authors.
At the time she was more than 20 years into her return to her hometown newspaper where she worked briefly as a stringer in 1974.
When she got the tip about Nau, she read his book, “We Walked Right Into It,” and followed up with a phone interview like she had done hundreds of times before.
“I was always interviewing local authors, and this, there was a lot of enthusiasm for because it was hyper local,” Shrift said.
Nau was very easy to interview, very upbeat, and easy to talk to, Shrift recalled. His book was outstanding, she added. The Vietnam War was a defining time for her generation, and it was a subject that always interested her.
She produced a 1,400-word piece for the Life section. A few months later she wrote about his local book signing event.
Nau emailed his thanks to Shrift, and asked if she knew what happened to some of his old Courier colleagues. It started other discussions about memories of the Levittown area, Bucks County history, and the newspaper business.
One night, Shrift and her late mother were watching a PBS documentary on a Vietnam War monument in Pawtucket that Nau spearheaded.
“I said to Mom, ‘Hey! I know that guy!’”
Eventually new topics found their way into their exchanges — more personal ones like family and vacations. Shrift consulted Nau before accepting a buyout in 2017 leading to her retirement.
A handful of times over the years they talked about meeting when Nau visited the area, but the timing never seemed to work out.
“I absolutely didn’t think about it,” Shrift said. “I thought that Terry was a ‘work friend.’”
From online friendship to IRL romance. The courtship of Terry Nau and Gwen Shrift
In this latest chapter of his life, Nau felt the familiar pull of his Lower Bucks roots. So he packed up his life in Rhode Island and moved home.
He wrote Shrift to tell her and offered to take her to lunch.
The same month he returned, Nau was tapped to speak at a bridge dedication for his high school friend, and fellow Vietnam War veteran, Eddie Beers, who died in 1968 at age 20. He let Shrift know.
“I knew she’d like it, because she had such respect for Vietnam veterans,” Nau said. “That’s why I really trusted Gwen from the beginning.”
About a dozen of his high school classmates showed up. So did Shrift.
Nau recognized her from the old newspaper headshot he had.
They agreed to meet for lunch two days later. Nau was 20 minutes late. Shrift forgave him.
“I didn’t consider it a date,” she said, then added quickly. “And it turned out to be a date. A great date.”
Their friendship moved into a romance faster than concert ticket sales for Taylor Swift.
“I never expected Terry to be as cute and charming as he is,” Shrift said. “We had a great friendship going on. He was a great communicator. He was very clear with me at every stage of this relationship.”
After their fourth date, Shrift texted her sister Maggie about Nau.
“There is a dreamboat situation arising here.”
Shrift started referring to Nau as, “Mr. Wonderful.”
“My girlfriends would write back and say, ‘So, how’s Mr. W?’”
Nau joked that no one referred to him as wonderful in his younger years.
“I would say to Gwen, you’re getting the finished product,” he said. “I don’t know, the older you get, the better person you become.”
The couple realized they had earlier near-misses.
They frequented Fairlanes Bowling Alley in the Fairless Hills Shopping Center. Shrift started at Penn State a few months after Nau graduated. They had old coworkers in common.
The first mention of love came one night as Nau was leaving her place. It was a moment that knocked her off her feet.
“I was, ‘Oh my God. Oh my God.’ It was such a feeling. I was bumping into the walls.”
It was clear where this story was headed.
“We were lucky and very fortunate. It was almost too easy,” Nau said. “I kept saying to Gwen, ‘This is so easy to be with you,’ and that is why it went so fast.”
Gwen Shrift and Terry Nau live happily ever after
Three months after “meeting” at the bridge dedication, the couple were at Shrift’s Lower Makefield townhouse talking and watching TV when he proposed.
“You know you don’t have a whole lot of time when you get to be 77,” Nau said. “I’m a guy who’s always on a deadline and I thought why wait? I mean there is no point in waiting.”
While their evolution from penpals to fiancés might sound fast, it was not rushed, Shrift said.
“There was more deliberation and more reserve than you might think,” she added. “And then it became what it was.”
Three more months later the couple exchanged vows before a district judge on Dec. 19, Shrift’s birthday.
“At our wedding I concluded my few words to Gwen by saying that I only wish I had met you 45 years earlier,” Nau said. “But we are really happy that we have this time together.”
Flash forward to a few days before their first Valentine’s Day together. The couple sat beside each other at a table in their favorite Yardley restaurant where they had their first date-not-a-date.
Shrift excuses herself to fix her lipstick. She was smooching on her husband in the car. She apologizes for failing to introduce her husband as they chatted with an old coworker from the Courier Times. Nau stretches his arm protectively around his bride. The couple walked back to their car hand-in-hand.
They are in the honeymoon phase, learning how to live with someone and navigating married life.
Life is full of surprises, the couple said.
“I’m so happy to be married,” Shrift said. “I had no idea this was possible. I would have gotten married a long time ago if I’d known how nice it is.”
