68 years apart may seem a lifetime for most people, but Frank Gray and Ada Hatch’s love story began in 1946. That’s when the two first locked eyes at church camp, and Hatch said they knew they had something special, according to AOL.
“When we went to church camp I got very homesick and I was glad that Frank was there … So we became friends to know each other better then.”
It wasn’t long before Gray gathered up the courage to ask his new crush out on a date.
“Then after we got home, I don’t know, It was a little while [afterward] maybe, I asked her if she would go to a movie with me.”
After six months of dating, the love birds broke up and Hatch found a new love interest. Eventually, they married other people and created their own families.
After 68 years apart, when Gray — whose wife died two years ago — heard that Hatch’s husband had also passed away, he reached out to try his luck with her one more time. Three calls later, she agreed to go on a date with him.
After rekindling their romance, the couple wasted no time. Gray and Hatch tied the knot this past Valentine’s Day, almost seven decades after they met, according to Canada Journal.
“Well, we’re both 85. How much longer do we have to enjoy each other? That’s a big question and probably we haven’t gotten too many years left here … So why not try to enjoy it? And I couldn’t think of a better way to enjoy it than to be with this girl.”
Hatch said they wanted to make their union legal. But Gray and Hatch aren’t the only ones who share this incredible story.
Dorothy Lehman of Whittemore lost her husband in 1974, but she had one other love in her life. A man named Douglas Ryland.
They met when they were teenagers living in Hale was back in the 1940s. Douglas even gave her a ring to profess his love, but Dorothy’s mother made her give it back. He ended up joining the service and they parted ways for 68 years.
Earlier this year, a knock at Dorothy’s door brought Douglas back into her life. He had read about her in the newspaper because she is on the local school board, and any money that she makes from the school goes into a scholarship fund.
Douglas felt compelled to help her, or compelled to meet her again, so he presented her with a check that would provide money to all of the scholarship applicants this year. After that first meeting, they talked for hours, started dating and traveling together.
68 years apart, they got married, notes WNEM.
“I feel like a teenager again,” Douglas said, “it couldn’t happen to a better person than my wife.”
