They had previously attended the same high school. After meeting again at the Maryland Casualty Company, the couple went to a movie on their first date together, and bought chocolate milkshakes afterward.
Agnew confessed in an interview with Parade magazine that her father had believed college education to be wasted on women, so in lieu of attending college, Agnew worked as a filing clerk. While working at the Maryland Casualty Company, she encountered Spiro Agnew.