February 12, 2025

By Suzanne Pietropaoli
Staff Writer

Andrew and Corrine Willis were married on August 16, 2014, at St. Mary’s Church in Clayton, where they are parishioners. Today, 10 years and two children later, the Willises explain, “We enjoy looking back on our path with appreciation for God’s hand at work in our lives.”

Neither expected to meet the love of their life that Saturday morning in February 2012 at the Miss Thousand Islands beauty pageant. A former contest winner, Corri was serving as emcee. Andrew, responding to a last-minute call from his mom (a pageant volunteer), had rushed from a late-night gig in Syracuse to the Watertown event to serve as sound engineer. “Corri and I had a very brief conversation about queuing up the needed songs: She would look at me; I would press the button. Got it! It was a silly, simple thing, but now we had this faith in one another, and we hadn’t even formally met. It didn’t hurt that her singing voice was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard.”

Their brief exchange touched Corri as well. “I’ve always had a strong sense of being led by God, and I knew when I saw Andrew that he was the one.” But there was more: Corri recalls that she had developed a response to suitors asking to hear her sing: “Sure! Come to Mass tomorrow! I’m singing there at 9 a.m.’ Andrew was the only one to ever take me up on the offer! After playing a late-night gig nearby, he drove all the way to Clayton the next morning to attend his first Catholic Mass. I was pretty stunned, and I guess that’s when I really knew he was the one. He fell in love with the faith (and me, presumably) and converted about a year later.”

Corri’s lifetime love for her faith quickly connected with Andrew’s efforts to develop a personal relationship with God – a quest that began in earnest in 2006.

“When my older sister had her first child, she sent me a King James Bible with John 20:29 hand-written on the inside cover,” he said. “Since then, I’ve been trying to make up for lost time. Meeting Corri and going through RCIA shortly thereafter put my faith journey into overdrive.”

For Andrew, RCIA ignited a desire to keep delving into his new-found Catholic faith with Corri.

“I recall coming out of RCIA classes and immediately discussing what I had learned with Corri,” he said. “We’ve continued learning together, through Formation for Ministry, Bible-in-a-Year style plans, and walking hand-in-hand through the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Unraveling the mystery of God’s plan together became just as much fun as pulling apart musical harmonies and arrangements.”

Harmonizing comes naturally to this talented pair. Corri earned degrees in music education (voice) and worked as a vocal teacher in public schools. Andrew, a software engineer with a degree in Computer Science, “grew up through garage bands and playing by ear” on a bass guitar.

“Similarly, Corri was Catholic from the start, and I was only just confirmed,” Andrew notes. “Those differing experiences were complementary, helping us produce things together that we’d never do alone…All these things contribute to what makes ‘Us.”’

Life continues to shape that “Us.”

“I think our biggest challenge has been time management and communication, but we weren’t fully aware of that until our children came into the picture,” Corri said. “As a young couple, we could treat our time with musical groups and other activities as ‘quality time’ because we were in the same ensembles. But we never got the much-needed practice of carving out time for one another. The changes that kids require can feel isolating, but if you put in the effort to communicate how you’re feeling and work to understand one another, you get through it and come out stronger.”

Completely lacking experience with infants, Corri relates, “There were a lot of challenges for me in getting my feet wet as a nurturer of a tiny human. The huge obstacle that I was not prepared for were the million tiny sacrifices we make for our children each day. I still struggle with   it   at   times,   but the harder I lean into scripture, the Church, Andrew, and my brothers and sisters in faith, the more natural it feels to sacrifice freely rather than begrudgingly. There is great joy and pride in watching my girls be themselves and do the things they love.”

“The most significant hurdle we’ve faced was re-orienting our career plans to better serve our family and faith,” Andrew added. “Corri gave up her decade-long position as a music teacher to be at home with our children (Cadence, 8, and Amelia, 5) and take the reins on the St. Mary’s Music Ministry. The idea was scary at first. She faced giving up a defining part of her identity. Still, we asked and listened, and ultimately, He answered via a daily music program on the evening radio in the car. Of course. Why wouldn’t that be how He’d get our attention?”

Corri explains why this decision was so hard.

“A catechist and cantor since my teens, I got my first experience with singing and teaching through the Church and was confident that God was leading me to a vocation of music education,” she said. “Leaving that was the hardest decision I have ever made, but I can see now how God Has used me more completely as a fulltime mother and part-time organist than He ever could as a full-time teacher and (what to me felt like) a part-time mother.”

This couple’s commitment to learning and living their faith shapes every aspect of their marriage and family. “Faith makes ALL the difference to us and to our family,” explains Corri. “We seek out and nurture a relationship with God. We want our children to pursue a relationship with God like they would any other relationship and invest the same amount of time and attention toward it. We talk to Him every day in the car on the way to school, we talk about situations in our life from a WWJD (what would Jesus do) standpoint, we say nighttime prayers for the people who need God’s help. When we as parents normalize including God in our family and reaching out to Him, our children notice that and start to lean on Him as well.”