Many people will tell you that love never dies, and for one couple at the Hillcrest Lodge, that is certainly true.
Jack Wallach, 81, and Jean Young, 86, only met seriously a short four months ago, but on Nov. 12, they exchanged their vows to spend the rest of their lives together and got married.
As is the case with many romances, their first meeting was not the stuff of cheesy romance novels. Instead, it revolved around a pool table.
“I was playing pool with the boys and she was watching for a couple of days,” Wallach said.
Young said watching Wallach wasn’t what she set out to do when she started being a pool spectator.
“I like to sit and watch them play pool,” she said. “I never thought of the ones who were playing, I just went to watch them play.”
Well, as it always does, one thing led to another.
“So I started watching her,” Wallach said.
From those first innocent moments, a four-month courtship started, complete with dinner dates and outings into and around the community. It was, in Wallach’s words, “just a general courtship.”
Young and Wallach both said there wasn’t a single point at which they realized that things had moved beyond a courtship and turned into something more. It just seemed that everything was falling into place and that their love was simply meant to be.
Of course, it doesn’t hurt that through all their time on this earth, they have more or less developed the same tastes in almost everything.
“We enjoy so many of the same things,” Young said.
Being in their 80s, their love doesn’t quite follow the same script as Hollywood romances seem to, but Wallach and Young are able to spend their time together enjoying each other’s company and doing things together.
They go for drives along country roads. They enjoy looking at the scenery and looking for animals. It’s nothing extravagant, Wallach said, but it’s what makes them happy.
They were married in the afternoon of Nov. 12 at the Hillcrest chapel in a small ceremony surrounded by friends and family. On hand was also a photographer with a vintage Packard who took the couple out to different sites in the county for some wedding photos.
Prior to the wedding, Young said she warned the Hillcrest staff to stay out of their room and not pull any pranks on the newlyweds after she said she heard whisperings of something being planned.
This being Wallach’s second marriage and Young’s third, one would think they would have learned lessons from their previous marriages. However, they both admitted there weren’t any specific lessons they could apply.
“Just make the best of it,” Wallach said.
So what advice does the new couple have for anyone looking for love at any age?
“Go for it,” Wallach said. “That’s what we were told.”
He recounted a story about his new wife shortly before they decided to get together.
“Jean’s best friend, Jean told her and her answer was, ‘Go for it, you don’t have many years left. You might as well enjoy what you’ve got,’” he said.
Love can happen at any age, he added, “as long as you want it.”
