Sometimes, it’s love at first sight – other times, loves thrives on second chances. In the case of Dolores, whom we interviewed for this entry in our Senior Love Stories series, the path to happily ever after wasn’t direct, but it was more than worth it.
At GrandPad, we celebrate the love that bonds us together for a lifetime: bonds that can be cherished and remembered by your children and your grandchildren. Our mission is to keep seniors connected to those they love, and the most important connection of all is love. As you’ll see in this Senior Love Story, love can grow and flourish even when you’re thousands of miles away from the one you love.
Dolores first laid eyes on her husband-to-be when they were in high school, when she was 15 and he was 17. As Dolores emphatically testifies, “I found him at a dance.” Dances were extremely popular, and Dolores and her husband connected on the dance floor. When asked if anything about him had stood out to her, Dolores replies with a twinkle in her eye that it was “because he had red hair. I thought that was pretty nice.”
After her laughter subsides, you can see Dolores’s mind transport back to that first dance decades ago. She remarks that her husband was always incredibly kind, and thoughtful. And that, no matter what, he always found a way to make her laugh. However, it wasn’t smooth sailing after that dance – Dolores had many suitors at the time, and broke it off with him after a few weeks. “I told him I was too busy,” she recalls, smiling.
Over the next few years, the world kept changing as they grew up. While Dolores worked in St. Paul, her husband joined the army and went halfway around the world to serve his country. One night, at another dance, Dolores saw the same man she had broken up with in high school. They danced the night away, and she fell back in love in one night. The next morning, however, he had to leave. War was calling.
Staying in touch via letters and phone calls, Dolores and her husband decided that they should get married. When he finally returned home, Dolores fondly recollects that the ring with which he proposed was “a really nice, pretty ring.” They told their parents in July that they intended to get married. When asked, “when?” by their parents, Dolores and her beau replied, “September.”
Dolores is confident that both her and her husband’s parents thought the marriage wouldn’t last, but 61 years, 5 children, 18 grandchildren, and 2 great-grandchildren later, they proved their parents wrong. Dolores notes that there were challenges raising their children on a farm with little money to their name, she and her husband nevertheless always found ways to have fun with their children and make countless memories.
Dolores concedes that marriage isn’t always easy. “When you live on a farm, there’s a lot of work, all the time,” she admits. “At first, I wasn’t very good at cooking. But I got better!” The key to a happy life together, she advises, is to remember that, when your spouse doesn’t do something right, that you’re probably doing something else that equally frustrates them. Always be quick to help each other, she recommends, and be even quicker to forgive each other.
Dolores’s favorite part about GrandPad is the simple, direct method it provides to help her stay in touch with her family, no matter where life takes them. Whether it’s video chatting, voice emails, or sharing photos, Dolores never has to write a letter halfway around the world to feel close to those she loves. Stay tuned for our next moving entry of Senior Love Stories!