New York couple to wed after divorcing almost half a century earlier
For Lena Henderson and Roland Davis, falling in love and getting married is all about letting second chances come. That's because, at 85 years old, both Henderson and Davis got re-married last Saturday in Buffalo, New York after divorcing in 1964 – 48 years ago!
The two met as teenagers in Chattanooga, Tennessee and got married very young. They had four children together, but an amicable divorced split the two in the mid-sixties. Both remarried, but each kept track of the other's life through their kids. In January, Davis' second wife died, and it wasn't long before he had Henderson on the phone. She had herself become a widow after her second husband died.
It wasn't long before they were talking on the regular, discussing life without their significant other. Then, some time around Easter, Davis got up the nerve to ask Henderson to marry him, even though they hadn't seen each other since a family funeral in 1996! Davis told the Associated Press that he had always had Henderson in mind, even during his second marriage.
"I had always kind of had that in mind, mostly because of the children," he said. "You never forget someone that you cared for at one time or another."
That feeling fueled his need to come home again. Davis moved from his home in Colorado to Henderson's in Rochester, where they've been living since. Their wedding, at Elim Christian Fellowship Church in Buffalo, was witnessed by four generations of family. And as their oldest daughter, Johnnie Mae Funderbirk, 65, noted, she was as giddy as a nine-year old. This is, indeed, a story to make us all feel young and in love again.