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An Uncommon Courtship

In the winter of 1942, 17-year-old Elaine Hanrath (then Elaine Lavelle) cornered handsome Bill Haring in the gymnasium of Escanaba Senior High School.

“You see, I had my eye on him,” Elaine says of Bill, then a high school senior. “So in the gym I caught him and I said, ‘How would you like to take me to the basketball game tonight?’ He didn’t know me from Adam, but he said, ‘Well, if I can get my dad’s car…’”

Elaine Hanrath and Bill Haring on their wedding day in Baileys Harbor.

One often hears stories of high school romances that result in marriage, and the ending of Elaine and Bill’s story is one such story, as today, they are happily married. But the story of this romance isn’t as straightforward as one might expect. In fact, Bill and Elaine were married just last week – after not speaking to one another for 66 years.

The story of the years when they were apart and the events that brought them back together is one that Bill and (especially) Elaine like to tell often.

The couple during their first go ’round more than six decades ago.

“I’ve got all the words and phrasing just right,” Elaine tells me proudly as we sit down to chat at her living room table, which is still topped with photographs, cards, and a bridal bouquet from the wedding she and Bill had in their Baileys Harbor home last weekend. “I have told this story to probably 200 people, and a lot of them are strangers. Just yesterday, we were at Al Johnson’s, and I told the story to the people waiting outside.”

The couple have had six decades to remember, rehearse, and retell the story of their early courtship: Bill (apparently having obtained his father’s car for the occasion) did indeed take Elaine to the basketball game and, at her request, kissed her on the drive home.

“After the basketball game, he took me home and that was that,” Elaine says, and the couple only went on three more dates before Bill called it quits. He was going to be a Baptist minister, he explained to Elaine in a letter, and would need a Baptist wife – so Elaine’s Methodist upbringing disqualified her from the list of potential long-term mates.

“I wasn’t ready to be a Baptist. So that was the end of that romance,” Elaine says.

“Or so we thought,” Bill qualifies slyly.

“Never ever, ever in our wildest dreams did we think we would get together again,” Elaine says. Both she and Bill graduated from high school, married other people, and had children. Elaine became Clerk of Courts; her first husband, Frank, worked as a school superintendent across Wisconsin. Bill, true to his word, became a minister and spent many years doing missionary work in Mexico. Bill and Elaine lost contact with one another and didn’t see each other again for over 60 years.

In 2004, both Bill’s wife and Elaine’s husband passed away. Two years later, in December 2006, Elaine decided to send Bill a Christmas card.

She received nothing in return (having used the wrong address the first time), but in Christmas 2007 decided to try one more time to reach Bill, who was now living in Fairhope, Alabama.

“I didn’t hear anything until March,” Elaine remembers, “so by that time I’d forgotten about it. But then I got a letter at the post office, and I said, ‘Ah! I got a letter from my old boyfriend!’ I announced it to the whole world.”

To Bill’s relatively short correspondence, Elaine returned a seven-page letter, summarizing the events of her life since she’d last seen her old flame. A spark struck the two of them, and Bill and Elaine quickly rekindled their former romance. By April, they were talking on the phone up to three times a day, filling each other in on six decades’ worth of news. By May, they were discussing wedding dates.

In July, Bill came to Elaine’s door to pick her up for a trip to his family reunion in Escanaba. They quickly set aside their old denominational differences.

“I opened the door, and he gave me a Baptist kiss. I thought, ‘Bingo! I want more of that.’ So I put my arm around him and gave him a Methodist kiss.”

“I didn’t know what Methodists were like until then!” Bill chuckles.

Bill and Elaine were officially engaged in Escanaba when Bill proposed to her in front of his entire extended family. On September 13, they were married at Elaine’s home in Baileys Harbor. Rain forced them inside (they had planned the wedding for the garden), but the gray weather did not dampen their spirits.

“It was a gorgeous day,” Elaine says.

Grateful to live in what is already a popular honeymoon location, Elaine and Bill have decided to spend their honeymoon period quietly at home in Door County, taking a daily nap and telling the story of their remarkable courtship to anyone who will listen.

Pat Palmer, friend of the new couple and owner of Novel Ideas (a Baileys Harbor bookstore where Elaine is a regular customer), says the newlyweds are the picture of nuptial bliss.

“Elaine still comes to visit the bookstore, but now she has her knight in shining armor to open the door for her and hold her bags while she shops around,” Palmer says. “They make a very sweet couple, and I hope that they truly live happily ever after.”

Indeed, happily ever after seems like a distinct possibility for Elaine and Bill.

As Bill puts it, “We had our hors d’oeuvres in 1942, then we had our lives of meat and potatoes, and now we have our dessert.

“And I want to romance this girl for the rest of my life,” Bill says, walking the length of the table to his new bride and putting his arm around her. “I still love her.”

“Well, you better.” says Elaine, her eyes twinkling. “I just married you.”