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Couple starts a life from a long distance romance Love Letters By DIANE TURBYFILL, LTN Staff Writer Feb. 13, 2002 - Writing letters has evolved into a whirlwind romance for one Lincolnton couple. Newlyweds June Leroy, 68, and Jesse Leroy, 71, met as pen pals. Their long-distance friendship quickly developed and, within three months, they were wed. “I thought I was a sensible woman,” June says laughingly. The widow of nine years, says she was enjoying the single life when fate stepped in and gave her a new direction. Her new path began because of a pen pal, Joyce Brown of Missouri, whom she met through a “Good Old Days” magazine. Through letters, Brown tried to persuade June to let her give her address to another pen pal of hers in Oklahoma. After refusing several times, June finally agreed. Brown then passed along her address to Jesse. “I told the lady I’d write to her, but there was nothing to it,” he says. But there was something to it. “When I got the letter, something just clicked,” June says. “I wrote back immediately and sent a picture.” The two began writing to each other daily. Before long, Jesse was calling on the phone as well. “I ran up so much of a phone bill they took my phone out,” he says jokingly. And June responded. “I’ve got a stack of letters from her about a foot high,” Jesse says. Through the letters and phone calls, June and Jesse discussed their past. They discovered each others likes and dislikes, and they fell in love. Jesse says the minute he found out that June liked to make cornbread, he was “snookered in.” Jesse proposed to June both in a letter and a phone call. “And I said yes.” The groom-to-be drove 900 plus miles to Lincolnton in a day and half. When he arrived on Friday, Sept. 14, 2001, Jesse and June applied for their marriage license. And on Sept. 15 the couple said their vows in front of 25 guests in the Upper Room Church in the Laboratory community. They honeymooned in Cherokee, traveled to Oklahoma and visited their pen pal and her husband in Missouri. For the first time in her life, June has traveled. “She never had been out of the state,” says Jesse. They participate in the ministry of their church, House of Hope in York, S.C. and spend time together at home. “We do it together or we don’t do it,” Jesse says. The Leroys celebrate their anniversary every month and are looking forward to their first Valentine’s Day together. “Maybe she’ll even cook me up a good meal,” says Jesse. And both seem satisfied with the pace of their relationship. “When we go anywhere, we just take our time and enjoy ourselves as we go,” says Jesse. June agrees, “We really have had fun and still are.”
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© 2001 Lincoln Times-News |
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