At 85, A Couple Remarries After Being Divorced for 48 Years

Apparently they were right the first time around.

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Sharon Cantillon / Buffalo News / AP

In a Monday, July 23, 2012 photo, Roland Davis of Colorado, left, and Lena Henderson of West Seneca, N.Y. pose for a photo at the Buffalo City Hall.

When Lena Henderson and Roland Davis, both 85, step up to the altar to get married this weekend, they might have a strong sense of déjà vu. It’s not far-fetched to think that as octogenarians both have been previously married. What’s odd about this couple is that they were previous married to each other.

Back in 1964, Henderson and Davis were divorced. But now, almost 50 years later, they’re getting remarried. The couple met as teenagers in Chattanooga, Tenn.. They married in 1944, had four children together, and then got divorced after 20 years of marriage. Davis eventually remarried and moved to Colorado. Several months ago his second wife died and, at the behest of his grown children, Davis prepared to move back East to be closer to his family who now lived in Buffalo. “None of our family was out there [in Colorado],” their second-eldest child, Johnnie Mae Funderbirk told ABC News. “I wanted to be able to reach him quicker so I thought it would be good if he moved back here.”

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Little did the couple’s children know is that Henderson and Davis were already close and had been talking on the phone for months. “I never told the kids anything, it was not their business,” Henderson told ABC News. “It was grown folks’ business.” It came as a big surprise to their kids when Davis called Henderson and popped the question, again. “We were talking on the phone one day and he said, ‘Will you marry me again?” Henderson said to UPI. “I said ‘well, well … yes.'”

Their children were surprised, but noted that their parents had a more amiable relationship than one usually expects from a divorced couple. “The way they would act to each other never indicated there was anything but a friendship between them,” said Renita Chadwick, their youngest daughter, in an interview with UPI. “I think we just kept thinking about each other all the time, even though we were so far apart,” Henderson said about her relationship with Davis.

The couple plans to re-marry each other in their new hometown of Buffalo, N.Y. As for their children, they are thrilled. “It’s like a dream come true,” Funderbirk said to ABC News, “I’m 65 years old and I’m like a kid who’s nine, finding out that my parents are getting back together.”

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