BOCA RATON (AFP) – Americans Harold Terens and Jeanne Swerlin promise their courtship is “better than Romeo and Juliet”: He is 100, she’s 96, and they marry next month in France, where the groom-to-be served during World War II.
United States (US) Air Force veteran Terens will be honoured on June 6 at a commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, the historic Allied operation that changed the course of the war.
Two days later Harold and Jeanne will exchange vows in Carentan-les-Marais, close to the beaches where thousands of soldiers waded ashore that day in 1944. The town’s mayor will preside over the ceremony.
“It’s a love story like you’ve never heard before,” Terens assures AFP.
During an interview at Swerlin’s home in Boca Raton, Florida, they exchange glances, hold hands like teenagers. “He’s an unbelievable guy, I love everything about him,” Swerlin said of her fiance. “He’s handsome.”
The youthful centenarian is also cheerful, witty, and gifted with a prodigious and vivid memory, recalling dates and locations and events without hesitation – a living history book of sorts.
