“High school sweethearts who were separated nearly seven decades ago reunited during the coronavirus pandemic and are now married.
The love story began 68 years ago, when Fred Paul and Florence Harvey first found each other.
The couple met as teenagers in Wandsworth, a small town in Newfoundland and Labrador province, Canada. They spent every moment they could together, taking walks after church, stealing kisses in between classes, and attending concerts.
Every night during the two years they were together, Paul would flicker his porch light before going to bed. It was his way of telling Harvey, who lived across the bay, good night and that he loved her.
‘She was my first love. My first girlfriend and my first true love,’ Paul, now 84, told CNN.
But when Paul turned 18, and Harvey was 15, the two went their separate ways. Paul moved to Toronto for work. A year later, when he came back to look for her, Harvey had moved to another town.
Eventually, they both married other people and started families.
But in 2017, Harvey found herself single again after her husband Len died of cancer. The couple, who were happily married for 57 years, had five children together.
Two years later, Paul’s wife of nearly 60 years, Helen, also died after suffering from multiple health issues, including dementia. They had two children together.
It was the shared grief over losing their spouses that brought them back together.
Rekindling an old flame
When Harvey heard that Paul’s wife passed away, she called to reassure him that things would slowly get better.
During that first conversation, which occurred a day after Valentine’s Day, they spoke about their separate lives, their children and grandchildren and celebrated each other’s happy memories.
‘I never thought it would go past that,’ Harvey, 81, told CNN. ‘But we went from talking once a week, to twice, to three times, to every day for hours. We had really reconnected even though we hadn’t seen each other in all those years. I knew this was it.’
Months later on his birthday in July, Harvey surprised Paul by coming to Toronto where they were finally reunited.
‘When I found out she was in town and was coming to me, it was 10:30 at night. I ran out of bed and got dressed and wrote “Welcome Florence” in chalk on the driveway and when she arrived, I walked to the car, gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek, and I held her hand and I knew right away that she had taken my heart,’ Paul said.”
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