Whatever it is, I just love stories like this, especially in these crazy times we live in. They are hopeful and romantic and prove that in the end, love does win out.
In love at 18 -- finally married at 80
'A GUY NEVER FORGETS HIS FIRST LOVE' | Highland Park alums 'right back to the way it was' in 1940s
By John Flaherty, Sun-Times
Jack Ross and Win Cushman were students at Highland Park High School when they fell in love the first time -- more than 60 years ago.
They held hands, went to dances. She knitted him a sweater. They talked of their future.
Then, she went off to college in Iowa. His family moved to New York, and he went to school, then to war in Korea.
They ended up marrying other people, had children, then grandchildren.
By 2006, they'd gone more than half a century without any contact. They were each widowed and alone, living on opposite sides of the country. Then, each decided to send the other a Christmas card. The rest came easily.
On Monday, now living in Arizona, Ross and Cushman got married again -- this time, to each other.
"A guy never forgets his first love," said Ross, a former commercial photographer who was married for 48 years and lived in Schenectady, N.Y. "You wonder from time to time: Where is she? How is she doing?"
Just before Christmas 2006, he found an address for Cushman on the Internet. But it was wrong, and the card came back.
Cushman was married for 52 years, living mostly in the Chicago area. Her mother always liked Ross and would tell her how he was doing. She kept a picture of the two of them sitting on her family's couch in Highland Park. "I didn't want to forget him," Cushman said.
By 2006, she'd moved to Arizona to be closer to one of her daughters. She found his address in an alumni directory and sent a Christmas card. He got it.
"He called, and I just about fainted away," Cushman said.
They got reacquainted over a series of phone calls, and Cushman went to visit her old sweetheart in New York.
Neither of them thinks there's much difference between falling in love at 18 and again at 80.
"I think the both of us went right back to the way it was in high school," Cushman said.
The couple were married at a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Peoria, Ariz., where they're part of a group that meets every Monday for breakfast.
"They both looked very happy," said Cushman's daughter, Lydia Bagley, who was matron of honor and who remembers hearing "about Jack periodically when I was growing up. He was the only one brave enough to date the principal's daughter."
After the guests had their wedding breakfast at Cracker Barrel, Bagley said, "We all had cake."
Gannett News Service
Contributing: Maureen O'Donnell
Jack Ross and Win Cushman are married by Dr. James Jacobson Monday with Ross' son-in-law, Tom Bagley, as the best man. They dated (inset) at Highland Park High School but then lost touch.(Mark Henle/Gannett News Service)
That is great. It makes the 23 years that Mark and I spent apart before finally getting married seem like nothing!!
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