Jeanne and Stephen Watts fell in love with each other in 1971 but they could not marry because Jeanne’s family objected to their marriage. However, 42 years later, Jeanne and Stephen Watts got married and are making up for all their “lost years.”
“When he proposed, I said, ‘A thousand times yes!’”, Jeanne told PEOPLE.
The couple first met when Jeanne was a freshman and Stephen was a senior at Chicago’s Loyola University.
“He was my first love. He was my true love,”Jeanne said.
Unfortunately, Jeanne’s mother objected to her marriage because Stephen was a black man.
“She just went ballistic,” Jeanne said, adding,“She didn’t want this relationship to happen at all.”
However, the two still managed to date for seven years. But once Jeanne graduated nursing school and got a job, the meetings became difficult because it included a long commute and Stephen did not have 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 two had spoken about marriage but Jeanne was scared to take the next step. She would have lost her “entire family.” And one day while doing her shift at the nurse’s station, she told Stephen, “I love you, but I just can’t do this.”
They both didn’t want this heart-broken ending. “I regretted it then, I regretted the way I did it, but I did it,” said Jeanne.
Four decades later, they were not in touch and were living their separate lives.
In 2021, things began to change for the better. Jeanne got divorced and her mother had also passed away. She decided to look for Stephen again. She couldn’t find him on social media.
“Everything came up a dead end when I tried to search for him,”said Jeanne.“There was virtually no trace of him.”
Thankfully, in April, she found the mailing addresses of his niece and wrote a letter to her. She told him that he was in a nursing home.
A month later, Jeanne called the nursing home and requested to speak to Stephen. A staff member told him that patients didn’t have bedside phones. So then, she wrote a letter to him but didn’t get any response. She could not even connect to him when she called again. Jeanne finally decided to travel to Chicago from Oregon in June 2021. Jeanne said, “I needed to know, Was he okay? Was he married? Would he forgive me?”
When Jeanne entered his room, he recognized her, said her name, and began to cry. “I knew he still loved me,” she said. In August of the same year, Jeanne moved in with Stephen and has been with him since then. Stephen told PEOPLE, “She is wonderful. She is my heart and soul,” adding“I want to live with her always.”
