‘We Just Love Being Together’

The intriguing really like tale of Frederick Paul and Florence Harvey, of Caledon, Ontario, goes again more than 60 several years.

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Moss Imaging Florence Harvey and Fred Paul at their marriage in August

It was close to Valentine’s Day in 2020 when Florence decided to phone her higher university boyfriend, Fred, after not talking to him for decades.

Florence experienced realized that Fred’s wife Helen had died in November 2019, subsequent a series of health and fitness difficulties that finished in dementia, and she desired to increase her condolences.

Obtaining missing her spouse, Len Harvey, to rectal most cancers in November 2017, Florence thought she and Fred — who dated as teens for 3 years in their little hometown of Wandsworth, Newfoundland — could relate to 1 a further, and also catch up.

“The to start with calendar year right after you reduce your mate, it is really a pretty, really lonely year. Each holiday break is a lonely time,” Florence, 81, tells Men and women in this week’s challenge. “I knew that Fred was most likely going by means of that, and I thought, ‘Well, I’m lonely, it really is Valentine’s, he’s probably lonely also. I am going to say hello there.’ And which is it.”

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Florence Harvey and Fred Paul at their marriage ceremony in August

But what she did not expect was that six months later, on Aug. 8, she and Fred, 84, would be wed in front of 30 loved ones customers at Norval United Church in Georgetown, Ontario.

“We just enjoy remaining with each other,” states Florence. “It’s excellent not to be lonely and to have somebody to share every thing with.”

Provides Fred: “You would imagine we’d been married for 60 several years to every other — that is the way we experience.”

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courtesy Fred Paul Fred Paul and Florence Harvey on their honeymoon in Niagara Falls, Ontario

It was a satisfied ending that neither 1 of them would have imagined many years back.

In 1951, a 16-12 months-previous Fred very first started walking a 13-12 months-aged Florence house from their two-home schoolhouse. The pair quickly designed a romance, locating artistic approaches to present their affection in their quaint 21-loved ones village.

“I favored Florence from the start off,” Fred remembers. “I would flick the porch gentle on and say goodnight to her and then she would flick the light-weight in her bedroom, about 2,000 toes absent.”

But relationship seemed pretty not likely for the few, who finished their marriage in 1954 when Fred, then 18, went off to Nova Scotia to stroll his sister down the aisle at her wedding day, for every his father’s ask for.

Next his sister’s nuptials, Fred anticipated to return house to Wandsworth but his plans modified on the way whilst going to his brother in Toronto, exactly where he ran out of revenue.

“I didn’t experience like calling Father and asking for a lot more money to get home, so I took a occupation there and type of obtained into the way of existence up there and under no circumstances did go back,” Fred says.

“Unnecessary to say, it broke my coronary heart at the time,” Florence notes. “I was quite lonely for a even though.”

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Courtesy Fred Paul and Florence Harvey Fred Paul and Florence Harvey when they have been young

More than the next 60 many years, the pair dropped contact — only seeing each individual other after briefly at a hometown reunion in 1997 — as they went on to live different lives.

Florence identified do the job as a trainer and satisfied her spouse Len — a welder, who she married in August 1960.

“I had a really delighted marriage,” states Florence, who by way of their 57-12 months union experienced five young children, 10 grandchildren and 7 good grandchildren.

In the meantime, Fred married Helen in January 1960 and went on to perform for the Peel District Faculty Board, outside of Toronto, for 30 several years and increase two young ones and 4 grandchildren with his spouse.

But then, in February 2020, fate stepped in to realign Fred and Florence’s paths.

When traveling to her brother at a Newfoundland retirement residence, exactly where Fred’s brother was also living, Florence figured out of Helen’s passing.

“She went over to say hi there to my brother, and he stated, ‘I’ve been chatting to Fred, and he stated it was all right for me to give you his range,'” Fred recalls. “I said, ‘Oh, she’ll most likely by no means simply call me, but sure’ … And that’s the way it commenced.”

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Moss Imaging Fred Paul and Florence Harvey at their marriage ceremony

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Within just times of their to start with discussion, the pair were chatting numerous times a week, for hrs at a time.

“I had no intention of obtaining into a further relationship or everything,” admits Florence. “But I couldn’t prevent pondering about him, and I don’t know why that was.”

In early July, Florence experienced organized to surprise Fred in Ontario for his birthday, and just 4 times later, the pair had marriage on the intellect.

Before the month had ended, Florence uprooted her existence in Wandsworth right after 81 decades to transfer into Fred’s Ontario house.

“I knew right absent she had taken my coronary heart,” says Fred, who notes their family members were initially skeptical of their whirlwind romance but are now extremely supportive.

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Moss Imaging Fred Paul and Florence Harvey at their marriage ceremony

Since their reunion, the pair has experienced to climate some health and fitness problems — Fred is undergoing chemotherapy for stomach most cancers — but the two are searching ahead to far more content occasions in advance.

“You try to make one thing of your life, but it really is not like sharing it with someone else,” states Florence. “Loving just one another is the most wonderful element of it all.”

Provides Fred: “Florence has been like an angel from heaven. She’s so pretty and so comprehension, and I enjoy her so considerably. Just about every working day, I wake up and say how blessed I am.”