Belleville Man Proposes To Fiancee At Nutley Library (PHOTOS)

NUTLEY, NJ — When avid reader and Nutley resident Christina Bennett’s boyfriend told her that they needed to make a trip to her local public library to check out an interesting book, it immediately set off a red flag.

“I thought it was strange they didn't pull the book for him before we got there because they usually do that for me,” explained Bennett, who works as an office manager for a doctor in Bloomfield.

That’s how much the Essex County woman and admitted bookworm loves her literature. And according to her fiancé, Belleville resident Richard James Quimby III, this fascination for the printed word is what led to a unique proposal at the Nutley Public Library on May 13.

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Quimby, who works for his family business, TPG Communications, recently told Patch that he and Bennett met when she joined the same congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses that he belongs to in Nutley.

Here’s his explanation of why he chose a library as the setting to ask Bennett to marry him.

“Once I got to know her, I realized how much she loved to read and has a collection of over a thousand books and said that the Nutley Public Library was her sanctuary and is there on a weekly basis. So I had an idea to place the engagement ring inside a hollowed out book and search the internet and found a perfect match on a website Weddingstar.com. The book was titled ‘The Story of Us,’ and has a bunch of pages in the front that allow you to fill out things such as ‘how we met,’ ‘our first date’ and more. And in the back was a jewelry box compartment where I was able to tape to the hollowed-out portion of the book and then place the ring in the pillow.”

Quimby’s next step? Enlisting the help of a local librarian.

“I asked [Supervising Librarian Jeanne Sylvester] if it would be ok to propose to Christina inside the library and she said that it would be excited to have it happen. I asked her if I could come before to give her the book so that when I came back with Christina, Jeanne could take me to the book on the shelf in the stacks.”

Quimby continued:

“We picked a semi-secluded spot on the 1st floor of the library. I don’t have a library card, so I told Christina that there was a book I really wanted to borrow and needed her to take it out for me.”

When he handed Bennett the book, she began to read it. And read it. And read it.

“When I saw the book, I figured it was connected to our eight-month anniversary a couple days before,” she recalled. “So I took my time with it.”

After a suggestion from her future fiancé to “take a look at the index in the back,” Bennett opened it and saw an engagement ring.

And that’s when Quimby got down on one knee and popped the question. Her reaction? “Oh my goodness… oh my goodness… oh my goodness.”

Send local news tips, photos and press releases to eric.kiefer@patch.com

Photos: Richard James Quimby III, Christina Bennett

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