Two sweethearts who lost contact after their courtship was interrupted by World War II had a happy reunion 66 years later, brought together by the chance discovery of two long-lost vinyl records.
Shirley Kerber arrived on the Grand Chute, Wis., doorstep of Don Spooner on Saturday afternoon, wrapped him in a warm embrace, and kissed him.
"I felt like the years had just disappeared," said Kerber, 84, of Phoenix. "It was like seeing him again in the old days."
There were no tears but plenty of smiles — and a few jokes about needing an oxygen tank. They sat in Spooner's living room, hand in hand.
"I would have recognized her anywhere. She has the same eyes," said Spooner, 87. "We've both got all our teeth, too."
The two hadn't spoken since 1942, when Spooner went to war.
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Spooner, then 21, and Kerber, who was then 18-year-old Shirley Brown, spent a last day together on the shore of Lake Michigan. He was her "Spoonie," and she was his "Shirl."
"We talked about getting engaged before I went overseas, but if I came home without an arm or a leg, it wouldn't be fair to her," he said.
They exchanged letters for about a year until Spooner contracted a near-fatal bout of malaria and hepatitis and couldn't write for many months.
He got her "Dear John" letter while still in New Zealand. Kerber lost contact and married another, and the two didn't speak for six decades.
Until last month.
That's when Spooner found two 78 rpm records in his old Army trunk. The Spooner and Brown families had recorded Christmas wishes for him back in 1942, but he didn't have a record player so he never listened to them.
A colleague recently burned them onto a CD and Spooner heard the long-lost voices of his parents — and of Shirl.
At one point, she whispered, "I love you more and more every day."
"I went through a half a box of Kleenex," Spooner said. "All the voices were just as I remembered them."
He decided to look up his old sweetie. Using her high school's alumni directory he traced her family to Phoenix, where he found a number for her late husband.
He left a message at that number. A week and a half later he got a return call.
"I heard you wanted me to call you," the voice said. "This is Shirl."
After a brief chat, Kerber decided to fly from Arizona to east-central Wisconsin "because he convinced me," she said. "He said maybe we'll have the first years of our lives together and the last years of our lives together."
Kerber's daughter, Kerry Kelly, accompanied her mother on the trip. Spooner asked her whether she and her siblings minded that he wanted to court their mother again.
"Life is for the living," she told him. "We think it's terrific. If I didn't think it was great, I wouldn't have brought her."
So will the happy couple live happily ever after together?
"We don't know yet, do we?" Kerber asked. "We just re-met."
She had a return flight booked for early this week but said she already knows she'll have to call the airline to move back the date.
When asked how long she'll stay, Kerber just smiled — the answer Spooner was hoping for.
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