After the Aisle: Divine Intervention

You might say music brought them together. Or, as legend has it, it was Cindy Creech DeFoor’s grandmother’s divinity fudge. 

Whatever sparked the relationship, no one can deny that music remains an integral part of Cindy and Fred DeFoor’s lives. Both Furman Singers, the two described their Furman experience while on the way from Columbia, South Carolina, to a Singers reunion on campus – a biennial tradition since 1979 that routinely draws up to 150 alumni from around the world.  

Fred ’77, a church music alumnus, served 34 years as a music minister in Columbia. He first heard of Cindy Creech ’78, an education major, through his roommate, the late David Belcher ’79, a piano performance major and Furman Singer who was a close family friend of Cindy’s. 

As such, Belcher was in possession of the infamous homemade divinity fudge from Cindy’s grandmother, and he shared it with Fred. The white, fluffy and apparently heavenly confection captured Fred’s attention, and not much later, the determined Belcher introduced Fred to Cindy next to Furman Lake outside the Dining Hall. 

The couple’s first date was Homecoming 1976, topped off by a fancy dinner at Pixie and Bill’s steakhouse in Clemson, South Carolina. Then they carved a pumpkin. The courtship lasted just a few months, then it stalled for the spring and summer and was rekindled the fall of 1977, just in time for another Homecoming.

“So, Homecoming has always been a special time for us,” Fred says. “I grew up over that summer and matured enough to get my head on straight.” 

The following January, Fred took Cindy on a drive through downtown Greenville, which in the late ’70s might have been ill-advised, Cindy recalls. “I think it was probably a pretty sketchy area, only we didn’t know it.” 

Fred pulled over somewhere near the Reedy River and began to read a letter in which he poured out his heart to Cindy and asked her to be his wife. 

They married about six months later. Now celebrating 44 years together, the DeFoors are retired, Cindy having served 28 years as a special needs educator for preschoolers. They look forward to traveling, including more Furman Singers reunions and Homecomings, since for the DeFoors “a Furman reunion is a family reunion,” Cindy says. Fred’s three siblings are Furman alumni, and three of the four met their spouses at Furman. 

Post-retirement options also include a possible move to the Upstate, in addition to spending more time with their grandchildren and two daughters – one of them a Furman music alumna, the other a Winthrop music graduate. As for their friend David Belcher ’79, who died too young at the age of 60 in 2018, after serving as chancellor of Western Carolina University, the DeFoors remember him fondly.   

“He’ll always hold a special place in our hearts for introducing us all those years ago,” Cindy says.