Barb & Bob Marshall: Ma’am, you’re under arrest for the rest of your life

Most marriages that begin in the back seat of a squad car aren’t going to end well.

Thankfully, Naperville’s Assistant City Manager Bob Marshall knew his wife, Barbara, was not like most girls when he proposed to her on her birthday, Nov. 6, 1992.

“My mother told me I needed to take Barb to a fancy dinner and propose like that, but I obviously knew Barb’s style and (she) wouldn’t like that, so I had to be clever and fun,” Marshall said. “And when I finally devised my plan, I knew she would love it way more than any fancy dinner.”

Back in November 1992, Bob Marshall was a Naperville police officer and Barb lived in a Schaumburg apartment while teaching in Carol Stream. And it just so happened that Bob had a friend who was also a police officer in Schaumburg. And that friend’s chief was kind enough to allow the officer and his squad to assist Marshall with his plan. An ill-placed stop sign also played a role.

“When I decided to go for it, I met my buddy in Schaumburg early that morning and we rode to her apartment complex,” Marshall said. “I had my buddy park, kind of hidden, but in a place where we could watch her roll right past the stop sign I knew she never stopped at. Then he was going to pull her over.”

As if on cue, within minutes Barb, on her way to work, cruised right by the stop sign and set Bob’s plan in motion.

“It was one of those stupid stop signs within the complex that no one ever stopped at,” Barb said. “So when I saw the officer pull up behind me I couldn’t believe it.”

Barb said she pulled out all the stops to convince the officer to let her go.

“I told him I was a teacher and he told me I was going to be late. I told him I was seriously dating a Naperville officer and he told me that was nice,” she said. “I thought he’d at least cut me some slack when I told him it was my birthday but all he said was ‘I’ll check that out when I’m looking at your license.’”

Little did she know Bob was hiding in the back of the squad. The officer went back and told him how hard she was working to get out of a ticket.

“I was hearing that and it was awesome, so I told him to go back and scare her a bit,” Bob said.

And it worked. Barb said she became more nervous when the officer told her he needed her to come back to his car because there were problems with her registration. She became even more freaked out when she noticed someone moving in the back seat.

“This guy’s got a criminal in the back of the car and he still feels the need to pull me over?” Barb remembers thinking.

Still, she went and sat in the front seat and waited patiently for the officer to finish. But her curiosity eventually got the better of her.

“I had to look back to see who was in the back seat because I was a little creeped out,” she said. “But as I turned around, Bob stuck the ring through the cage and asked ‘Will you marry me?’”

After her acceptance, some tears of joy and few laughs, she headed to school, but not before stopping for nail polish so she could properly display her new ring.

“I walked into the front office and just yelled, ‘Anyone want to know why I’m late?’” she said. “And as I said that a dozen red roses were delivered and everyone knew and we celebrated a little. I was in heaven. It was awesome.”

Would she still have said ”yes” if the ring had come over dinner?

“Of course I would have, but Bob would have never done that,” she said. “He gets me and he knew I would want a cool story to tell.”

The Marshalls were married on July 10, 1993.