They grew up in the same town and went to high school together— but it wasn’t until Payne joined the Army that a relationship developed. “His mother asked me to write him while he was in Korea,” she says. They started dating when he returned home in 1956, and married shortly thereafter. They’ll be married 50 years in July.
“I think it’s important to be friends first,” she says. It’s also good to remember that relationships take work. “Too many couples today want to bail when times get hard, but you work through those times with patience and understanding.”
Together again
Warren Anderson and Louise Grayson met at Kansas University and dated a handful of times before she graduated in 1940. Then she moved to Washington, D.C., married an FBI man, and had a family.
“When I graduated in 1941, I went to war. I didn’t think I’d ever see her again,” Anderson says. After the war, he also married and had children—but on occasion, he wondered about his “college sweetheart.”
Over the years, time took both their spouses. Then in 1999, Anderson got a phone call that took him back nearly 60 years. It was Louise.
“Kansas University had published a list of alumni for a reunion, and she had seen my name near the top of the list,” says Anderson. “I think she just wanted to find someone who could walk and still drive,” he jokes. “If my last name had started with a Z, she might never have called.”
Louise Anderson whispers, “That’s not true.”
“She invited me to the reunion,” he says. “I was anxious, but I played it real close to the belt. I always thought she was too sophisticated for me.”
Louise met him at the airport wearing a red carnation. “When we met again, the chemistry was still there,” he says. They were married that same year.
Love in progress
Ray Kosbau met Evelyn White many years ago when she worked with Kosbau’s late wife Barbara at the phone company. Both happily married, the women developed a friendship, and the couples became good friends. White eventually moved to Tennessee, but all remained in close contact. In the last four years, Kosbau and White lost their spouses.
“Last summer, I sent her a card inviting her to come and see my new home at Wind Crest,” Kosbau says. “I hadn’t seen her in 15 years, so I was shocked when she said she would come.”
After he picked up White at her daughter’s home in Missouri and took her on a road trip through South Dakota on the way back to Denver, sparks flew on both sides. “I didn’t expect it at all,” Kosbau says.
“It just happened.” As for their future, Kosbau reports that White is planning to relocate to Wind Crest, where they can enjoy the good life together. Their story continues to unfold today.