They say it's never too late to find love and the story of Bernard Snyder and Jo Cartwright is a testament of that.
“I hope we get as much as five years. But I think we will enjoy each other as long as we have it,” Bernard Snyder, 98 said of his marriage to Jo Cartwright, 96
The couple, both widows in their 90s, married one week ago on Friday, Nov. 1, after meeting at their retirement home in Austin, Texas. Snyder is 98 and his new bride is 96.
The groom was smitten the first time he saw Cartwright. "I had to find out who she was," he told local outlet KUT News. Cartwright recalls suddenly noticing Snyder around her a lot.
“Wherever I was, he was there,” she told the outlet. “I would look up and there he was right there. And I thought, ‘Well, maybe this man — maybe he likes me a little bit.’ ”
Snyder moved into the retirement home with his former wife in 2017. But in 2023, she passed away after a long illness, leaving Snyder alone following his 73-year marriage.
After Cartwright caught his eye, he worked up the courage and asked her to be his "dinner partner." Their first meal date together soon led to long walks in the courtyard.
Before long, they both found themselves falling in love — something they never expected. “It didn't ever occur to me that I would meet anybody — or even want to,” Cartwright told KUT News. “But I guess I fell in love with him … after a few months.”
Added Snyder: “I'm thinking, 'I was married 73 years,' which is a long time. I didn't think there was going to be anybody. I never even thought about it because it just didn't seem logical."
Snyder ended popping the question and Cartwright said yes. They were excited, but worried about how their children — they each have three — would react. Snyder told the outlet he had seen other widowed men around his age upset their children by getting remarried.
But, as it turned out, their kids were super supportive, telling the couple, "Whatever makes you happy makes us happy." They even jumped right in and planned the pair's wedding, held in the same courtyard where their romance first bloomed.
Their loved ones gathered together for the ceremony that ended with the newlyweds breaking a glass in a nod to Snyder's Jewish faith and releasing butterflies. Now, they are fully embracing their time together as husband and wife.
“I hope we get as much as five years. But I think we will enjoy each other as long as we have it,” Snyder told KUT News.
As for Cartwright, she has a message for others out there thinking that their time for love is in the past. “The basic crux of the whole story is that you can love again,” she said. “It's wonderful to know that you can.”
Source: People