Great-grandmother weds partner 64 years after breaking off engagement
An 82-year-old woman has married her former boyfriend more than 60 years after breaking off their engagement.
Janet Skillingstad, from Minnesota in the US, married her one-time fiancé, Gene Ertel, 64 years after she returned his engagement ring because she wanted to concentrate on training to be a nurse.
After breaking off the engagement, the couple went their separate ways, married other people, raised children, and lost their spouses.
“But I never stopped thinking about her,” Gene, 81, told Minneapolis news outlet KARE11.
When he was diagnosed with cancer, he decided it was time to stop just thinking about Janet and try to get in touch with her.
He asked a friend who had worked as a private investigator to find his former flame’s phone number.
“When I called her I said, ‘don’t hang up, this is not a prank call’,” he said.
They ended up talking for more than an hour, then every day on the phone, and then they agreed to go on a date.
Janet’s daughter Ruth said she knew there was a spark the first time she saw them together.
“Just the glances that they were making, their hands would touch,” she said.
“It was very much like two teenagers.”
As it turned out, despite the 64 years apart, they had never lived more than 30 minutes away from each other.
Three of Gene’s children were born at the hospital where Janet worked, but they never ran into each other.
They got married on October 26 and as Gene undergoes treatment for prostate cancer they are committed to making the most of however much time they have left.
