Joan and Don Vardy dated much earlier in life and then reconnected after his marriage ended and she was widowed. They’ve been together ever since. Photo: Anna Pelletier-Doble
Through the ages, there’s been no shortage of ink spilled writing about love. It’s what makes the world go around, after all.
Whether it’s reuniting with a high school sweetheart or falling in love with the same person all over again, it can manifest in a multitude of ways — and at any age.
‘I’m always touching him’
Don Vardy doesn’t have many regrets in life, but leaving Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. — and his future wife — in 1974 is one of them.
Vardy first met Joan Shannon in 1961, when he was 12. He’d gone to Sault Ste. Marie to live with his older sister while attending school. Shannon was 14 years older and married with children. Her husband was friends with Vardy’s brother-in-law. Vardy sometimes babysat Shannon’s oldest daughter, and she tied his tie for his Grade 8 graduation.
He returned to his native Newfoundland the following year and didn’t see Shannon again until 1973, when he returned to the Sault. By then, he’d joined the army and been overseas. She was going through a divorce, and they soon started dating.
“We really had a good thing going,” recalls Vardy, the vice-president of the National Association of Federal Retirees’ Algoma branch.
A year later, he rejoined the army and moved to Calgary. Shannon had a teenager and a baby, and Vardy says the prospect of settling down was too much for his 25-year-old self.
“It was fear. It was a lot of responsibility, and I wasn’t ready,” he says.
“If I had my time back, I’d have done things differently. I would have said, ‘Joan, let's take a chance. Come to Calgary and marry me.’”
Instead, they married other people.
Over the years, Vardy says he often wondered how Shannon was doing. She kept his address and bought cards she never sent.
When his marriage ended in 2006, he returned to the Sault, and had no intention of reconnecting with Shannon, as he assumed she was married. But at his sister’s urging, he called her in January of 2007 and asked her out for coffee for old-time’s sake.
Now widowed, Shannon met Vardy the next day and they haven’t parted since. The 77-year-old is convinced fate brought them back together.
Bound by a love of music and travel, they don’t waste time squabbling over nonsense. And having lost him once, Shannon, 91, isn’t about to let him go again.
“When we’re together, whether we’re sitting on the chesterfield or if we’re in bed, I’m always touching him,” she says. “He can’t get away from me.”
Love at first sight
The military also played a part in pulling Janet Crawford and John Ball apart for 55 years.
They’d met at Saint John High School in New Brunswick and it was love at first sight. They dated for three years before he enlisted and moved away, and the distance took its toll.
They both eventually married other people and had happy lives. Ball spent five decades living in Western Canada but after his wife died, he returned home to New Brunswick for a visit and called Crawford, whom he determined was widowed. She suggested meeting at her family’s cottage where they’d spent time as teenagers.
Crawford, whose husband, Hans, passed away in 2010, admits she was nervous as she waited for Ball to arrive, but her nerves fell away when he got out of his car. Walking through the woods together made for a stroll down memory lane — literally and figuratively.
Over the next few days, there were many long walks and talks.
“It didn't take long to feel very comfortable,” says Ball, 78.
He’d socialized with women in his building after his wife died, but he'd had no interest in another relationship until he reconnected with Crawford, also 78.
“It just seemed to unfold so naturally,” he says, crediting their shared history. In fact, they have so many things in common, they each got two cats in the pandemic so now all four cats co-exist.
The pair married in June 2023 and Crawford says never having lived together as teens, things are different and “really pleasant” this time around. Ball sets the coffeemaker each night so a fresh pot awaits in the morning. They share a cup and then go for a walk.
“John’s cheerful all the time — we never argue,” says Crawford, who is a member of Federal Retirees because she has a military pension thanks to her former husband, a member of the Royal Canadian Regiment Band.
“We’re really happy we reconnected,” she says. “And he’s quite happy to be a Maritimer again.”
An unexpected remarriage
For Kathy McArthur, love also looked very different the second time around.
The first time she met her husband, Pete, they were both 18, new to Victoria, away from their families and lonely. But they also had stars in their eyes and connected right away.
They married in May 1953, and he shipped out for the Korean War that August. He was away until Christmas and shipped out again in the New Year. Their son arrived in November, and Pete was back at sea within three weeks. A daughter followed two years later. By then, Kathy and Pete were fighting, and they separated when their daughter was three.
“We were immature. We had no idea. Being apart for such long periods of time didn't bond us very well, mentally, emotionally or physically,” Kathy says.
Pete remarried several years later. Kathy never did. She had relationships she treasured, but was independent and went on to have a successful real estate career. She never carried a torch for her ex, insisting, “I was done with that.”
However, in 1989, when he was severely injured in a car accident that killed his wife, Kathy rushed to Pete’s side at a Calgary hospital. He was in intensive care with no will to live when a doctor urged her to encourage him to fight. She spoke of the new granddaughter he’d yet to meet and the rainbow trout he hadn’t caught.
“What are you going to do?” she asked him.
He gave her a thumbs up.
“There we were at 59. I sort of put everything aside and committed to him right then,” Kathy says.
“I knew he had to have somebody stick by him and fight with him to keep going. He was a dear man and he trusted me.”
Soon, Pete moved to Kamloops, B.C., where Kathy lived. He was battling esophageal cancer, and at a December appointment, the doctor joked it was time Pete remarried Kathy.
“I was quite happy not being married at that point,” she recalls. “I didn’t know then that he wasn’t going to live, but he [knew].”
In January 1990, 37 years after first exchanging vows, they married in their home.
At Pete’s insistence, Kathy became an active member of her branch of Federal Retirees, gaining a community of people for whom she’s grateful.
In March, Kathy fed Pete a final meal before he got a feeding tube. During the 10-day hospital stay, Pete wasted away and lost his ability to speak.
Having met his granddaughter and caught his trout, he died in June 1990, just shy of his 60th birthday. Despite their short time reunited, Kathy says it did their hearts good.
“I've never regretted redoing the marriage vows,” she says. “The kids couldn't understand it, but they're very grateful now that it was all resolved, that demons were put to bed. It was a good thing to do. It was a different kind of love — bone and soul deep.”
Love later: Sometimes it’s a friend who becomes a flame
There's a saying that when one door closes, another opens. In the case of Al Kildaw and Barb Heidt, it was a matter of one walking in the door as the other walked out. It happened at a mutual friend’s 80th birthday party in 2022. Kildaw had planned to drop off a card and head home. But as he headed into the seniors' centre, Heidt was heading out. They’d known each other for about 19 years. A former weather services specialist with Environment Canada, Kildaw was the mayor of Herbert, Sask., when Heidt and her husband, Dan, moved to town. He cut the ribbon the day they opened their antiques business.
They’d been friendly over the years, but never socialized. That day, they stopped and chatted. Knowing they were both widowed, Kildaw told Heidt to call him. She told him to call her.
“I did and we went for supper,” he says. “We've been pretty much together ever since.”
Neither was looking for love when it found them. Having lost his wife, Gail, at the start of the pandemic, Kildaw, 81, had made like a hermit for the following two years. Heidt, 77, was “perfectly happy” on her own for three years.
“I wasn't looking for anybody,” she says. ”Yet, almost immediately, I had a feeling that this is somebody I could spend the rest of my life with. It just came out of the blue and surprised both of us. We’d known each other for so long, but had never looked at each other in a romantic way.”
The two have similar interests and love travelling. Heidt knew she’d say yes if he ever proposed. Kildaw had vowed never to marry again, but soon had a change of heart.
“We were so in tune and committed to each other, I just thought it was the right thing to do,” he says.
The pair exchanged vows on Remembrance Day last year. “You don’t forget your anniversary that way,” Kildaw laughs.