Weddings

Prom couple marry 64 years after first high school dance

They went to prom together in 1952, but life got in the way for the next 60 years.

Good things are worth waiting for, goes the saying. And for Joyce Kevorkian and Jim Bowman, it took them almost a lifetime to reconnect with the high school sweetheart they always held a flame for.

Joyce and Jim, both now 81, were fresh-faced 16 year olds when they had their first date to their school prom.

The year was 1952, and according to Jim, Joyce was wearing a “gorgeous…big and fluffy” prom dress traditional of the time.

“She looked like a princess,” the senior citizen told PEOPLE magazine.

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But like most teenage romances, it came to an end, with the couple drifting apart, moving away and starting their adult lives.

“He had his life and I had my life. He probably called me four times over the last 60 years,” Joyce told Buzzfeed News.

But miraculously, 64 years after their prom date, Jim wrote to Joyce to organise a reunion. This turned into a regular correspondence between the pair, and then real life visits.

They fell in love all over again.

“My Grandma started smiling again, our talks were about her future and what she looked forward to… she became herself again,” Joyce’s granddaughter Anna posted on Facebook.

“I guess the same thing happened to Jim, his daughter called my grandma and thanked her for ‘helping her dad smile again’.”

Jim had met his wife at the University of Illinois, and they were married for 58 years before she developed Alzheimer’s disease and died of a stroke.

Similarly, Joyce met her husband of 53 years when she went to University in Wisconsin before she lost him, too.

But on April 1st, Joyce and Jim proved you’re never too old for romance as they wed at Joyce’s senior living facility.

“We thought that was a good day for two old fools to get married,” Joyce told Buzzfeed.

The couple at prom in 1952

Granddaughter Anna Harris said: ““It is easy to see when they are together how happy they are. I think that reconnecting with each other is one of the best things that could have happened to them,” she said.

“I don’t think of Jim as replacing my grandpa, he gave me my grandma back.”

“It makes me feel young again,” Joyce told Buzzfeed. “It makes him feel young again.”

“It makes you feel revived – It’s wonderful.”

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