Sometimes happy endings get even happier.
Last year, PEOPLE featured the story of a woman who reconnected with her long-lost love after 42 years apart. And just a few months ago, the couple — Stephen Watts and Jeanne Watts (formerly Gustavson) — got married!
“When he proposed, I said, ‘A thousand times yes!’” Jeanne, now 69, tells PEOPLE for the Valentine’s Day special in this week’s issue. “We’re trying to make up for 42 lost years.”
Jeanne and Stephen first met in 1971, when she was a freshman and he was a senior at Chicago’s Loyola University.
“He was my first love. He was my true love,” Jeanne said in last year’s Love issue.
But Jeanne’s mom strongly objected to the relationship because she didn’t want her White daughter seeing a Black man.
“She just went ballistic,” Jeanne said. “She didn’t want this relationship to happen at all.”
Still, the pair secretly dated for seven years. But after Jeanne graduated nursing school and landed a job that required a long commute and late shifts, she faced difficulties seeing Stephen, who didn’t own a car.
“I was completely overwhelmed by everything,” Jeanne said. “The family issue was always weighing on me because it fractured the relationship between my mother and myself forever. She was always my mother and I always loved her, but it affected our relationship for the rest of my life.”
The couple talked about marriage, but Jeanne was afraid of taking that next step.
“I would’ve lost my entire family,” she said.
Standing at the nurse’s station during her shift one evening, Jeanne told him over the phone, “I love you, but I just can’t do this.”
Crushed by the news, Stephen was speechless. It was an abrupt ending that would haunt Jeanne for years to come.
“I regretted it then, I regretted the way I did it, but I did it,” said Jeanne.
They would spend the next four decades leading separate lives and not speaking to each other.
