Ada Laurie Bryant and Robert Mitchell
Haire were married Saturday in Hockessin, Delware, United States of
America. Robert L. Bryant, a Universal Life minister and a son of the
bride, officiated at his home.
The bride, 97, is keeping her name. She graduated from Lesley College in Cambridge, Mass.
She is the daughter of the late Ada Lee Laurie and the late Richard Laurie, who lived in Hingham, Mass.
The groom, 86, a chemical engineer,
retired as a manager of labour relations from E. I. du Pont de Nemours
& Company in Wilmington, Del. He graduated from Vanderbilt
University and received a Master’s degree in History from the University
of Delaware.
The bride was a widow and the groom, a widower.
The couple met in 2007, when Mr. Haire
and his first wife, Jean, moved into Country House, a retirement
community in Wilmington, Del. Mrs. Bryant had lived there since 2001
with her first husband, Leonard, who died shortly after they moved in.
Mrs. Bryant and Mrs. Haire became close friends.
In January 2010, Mrs. Haire was given a
diagnosis of Lou Gehrig’s disease, and died 15 months later. In August
2011, Mr. Haire asked Mrs. Bryant, an artist whose murals adorn some of
the walls of Country House, to paint a portrait of his late wife, and
Mrs. Bryant agreed. Mr. Haire was “blown away” by the finished work and
asked Mrs. Bryant to help him choose the perfect frame at a local shop.
Afterward, they had lunch at a tearoom, and both were surprised to
discover that they had a lot to say to each other.
“There was some kind of feeling,” Mr. Haire recalled.
They began going on regular lunch dates
and became very close, revealing to each other that both hated going to
dinner alone at Country House. Even though they knew it meant they might
be labelled a “couple” by the other residents (a “couple” being a widow
and a widower who do things together), they started going together.
On January 25, 2012, Mr. Haire, a
hobbyist poet, slipped a sonnet vowing “friendship and affection”
beneath Mrs. Bryant’s apartment door with a note that said “this
represents how I feel in our relationship as a couple.” He was afraid to
give it to her in person.
“I was desperately trying to strike a
balance between too timid or bold. I didn’t want to mess things up,” he
said about the courtship. “I can attest that it doesn’t get easier even
in advanced age.”
He needn’t have worried. The next
morning, he found a note outside his apartment door. Mrs. Bryant was
delighted with the sonnet, and “she would heartily enter into that
relationship.”
Jane Bryant Quinn, one of Mrs. Bryant’s
daughters and the author, columnist and financial adviser, recalled
speaking with her mother on the phone around this time.
“Her voice was kind of glowing,” she
said. “She loved having someone to talk to again. Since my father died,
she just didn’t have someone to talk to in the deepest sense.”
On Valentine’s Day, Mr. Haire presented
Mrs. Bryant with a loose sapphire that he said he wanted to have mounted
as an engagement ring. Mrs. Bryant refused the proposal, but a few days
later said she would accept the stone as a friendship ring.
“I said, ‘I’d very much like you to accept it in whatever way you’d like,’ ” Mr. Haire said.
Their feelings continued to grow. Mr.
Haire presented her with another sonnet in late March, and by April they
had professed their love to each other.
The subject of marriage came up occasionally, but Mr. Haire never pressed the issue.
“I told her repeatedly that whatever care
she needed, I’d already committed to,” Mr. Haire said. “She could rely
on me no matter whether we married or not.”
Mrs. Bryant finally accepted his proposal
on August 6, and they will move into her apartment (“It’s slightly
bigger,” he said) after the wedding.
She explained why she first turned him
down. “There’s a great difference in our ages, as you can see,” she
said. “I didn’t think it was the thing to do because I don’t have that
many years ahead of me, but he said, ‘That’s all the more reason.’ I
like him very much. I love him. So we’re going to be married.”
- Culled from Newyork Times.
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