It’s a 90s Story of Reunion, Romance

After his wife died, loneliness and curiosity took 95-year-old Paul Johnston to the doorstep of his college sweetheart’s home.

Seventy-five years after they last saw each other, the spark was still there, and it led to marriage.

“I love you,” Johnston says as he kisses the cheek of his 94-year-old bride. Lula Marschat giggles like she’s a schoolgirl again.

The two, who had a yearlong romance in college, never imagined they would reunite. Johnston lived in Idaho, Marschat in Oregon.

They started dating at an Idaho college in 1924--Marschat was a junior and Johnston a senior. They shared picnics and never missed a dance.

“We simply liked each other,” Johnston said.

After graduation, Johnston moved back home--150 miles away--while she remained at school. Since they did not have telephones and had to borrow a car to see each other, it was difficult to stay together. But Johnston never forgot his sweetheart.

Johnston, whose wife of 70 years died in 1997, first tracked down Marschat’s sister in Idaho. He discovered that Lula was alive and that she, too, had lost her spouse. But her sister, protective, dissuaded him from contacting her.

Undaunted, Johnston went home and spent three days composing a letter. He mailed it on a Wednesday, and on Friday night, the phone rang. It was Lula.

“I was excited to know he was still alive,” she said.

They had a lot to talk about. Johnston, who was a radio operator during World War II, survived a Japanese torpedo attack that sank his ship off Hawaii. He later received a master’s degree in history at UC Berkeley and taught secondary education in Idaho.

Coincidentally, his four children lived near Marschat. She also became a teacher and had three children with her husband, a school superintendent.

After the phone conversation, Johnston booked a flight immediately. When he arrived at her doorstep, she expected to greet him with a handshake. Instead, he opened his arms. “We clasped,” she said.

Four days later, he proposed at the dinner table. When she accepted, he leaned over and kissed her lips. “It was such a long kiss,” she said, blushing.

They were married Saturday. More than 200 people attended the wedding at a Woodburn church, with the bride in a green suit and the groom wearing navy blue.

“We were college sweethearts,” he said. “We still are.”