Meet: When Nina Baldacci gave a couple of U.S. servicemen a tour of Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., she did so partly as a congressional staffer. But, expressing gratitude to soldiers personally, she believes, is also important in a time of war. So, through e-mail, she befriended Tom McGuiggan during his nine months in Afghanistan, even driving five hours to Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, N.C., to celebrate his return in January 2004.
Then, an ice storm left her stranded for several days in a hotel with no room service. Baldacci, who is diabetic, ate vending-machine food for a couple of days before she began feeling ill.
On the advice of hotel staff, Baldacci made her way to the only open restaurant nearby – Hooters. There she met Tim Sloan, a friend of McGuiggan’s. They talked about the war, life, God and politics. “It wasn’t love at first sight,” she says, “more a camaraderie.”
Match: She returned to D.C. He took an ROTC job at Princeton. They spent a lot of time talking on the phone. Then, Sloan lured her with a snowboarding offer. Baldacci, who grew up in Evergreen, couldn’t resist.
After a day of falling down together on slopes in Pennsylvania, something shifted. “You could tell it was one of those moments,” Sloan says.
Baldacci says she once composed a list of qualities she required in a mate. Yet, she says, “Tim has qualities I never knew I needed.”
Sloan, who was married once before, says Baldacci “is very communicative, very kind, very honest. There’s no doubt about how she feels and no feeling that there is something hidden behind that. It’s not anything you have to imagine or pretend or guess at.”
Baldacci, a Republican (for now), says Sloan, a Libertarian, helped her understand “why I believe what I believe, not just the talking points and what feels good.”
United in their love for former President Ronald Reagan, they even stood in line overnight to see him lying in state. Baldacci, as a Capitol insider, could have avoided the crowds but waited for Sloan so that they could pay their respects together. “When we got into the rotunda, it was a stunning moment,” she says.
Marry: Both got jobs in Colorado in late summer 2004. “In so many ways,” Baldacci says, “I just feel like God orchestrated it for us.”
After a cross-country road trip, including stops at many baseball parks, they arrived in Colorado with an eye toward a shared life. Family and friends, including Sloan’s Army buddies, attended their Sunday afternoon wedding at the historic Chapel of the Good Samaritan in Exempla Lutheran Medical Center.
Their pastor, Guy McCaslin from Applewood Community Church, talked about Baldacci and Sloan’s sense of community accountability, where people of Christian faith support one another in the trials of daily life. He went on to cast his message in baseball terms, much to everyone’s amusement. Later, guests cheered and toasted “Team Sloan” with beer, specially brewed by the bridegroom for the occasion.
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