Teenage friends reconnect decades later and marry ~ Joseph Lewis asked Lillie Murphy to marry him when he got out of the Army in 1949 and decided he was ready to settle down.  Murphy told him she loved him, but she was barely 21 and too young for marriage. She said she needed more time. It might be best, she said, if they went their separate ways for a while.

And so they did.

But Lewis is a patient man.

More than 60 years after Murphy broke his heart, Lewis finally got his girl Saturday afternoon when he held her hand beneath an arch of flowers and ribbon and heard her say "I do."

"Love is kind," the minister said. "God has given both of you a second chance at happiness."

Lewis, now 86, and Murphy, 83, know well the truth of those words. Their path to the altar Saturday was one that led them through a lifetime of love, joy and sorrow before finally leading them back to each other.

That's the thing about love, Lewis says. It might be tested by time or distance or hurt feelings.

But it endures.

"I never really turned her loose, I guess," Lewis says. "True love never dies."

First came heartbreak, then new lives for both.  

Their story began in the early 1940s, when they met at church in College Hill and hit it off right away.

She liked that he was handsome and more mature than boys a little closer to her age, and he liked that she was bright and didn't mind telling people what she thought.

They'd dated for about a year when Lewis joined the Army and shipped out for World War II in 1944. He said he wanted to marry her when he got back, and she said that sounded like a fine idea.

But Murphy was all of 16 at the time, and things had changed when Lewis returned in 1949 and tried to make their engagement official.

"I was not ready to settle down," Murphy says. "So he went on with his life, and I went on with my life."

Within a year, Lewis fell in love with another girl, Virginia, and asked her to marry him. They would remain husband and wife for 58 years. They had no children but traveled the world and dedicated themselves to their church in South Carolina.

Murphy also moved on and, eventually, settled down. She and her husband, Thomas, spent 51 years together in College Hill and raised three daughters.

They were great marriages, Lewis and Murphy say. And they wouldn't change a thing.

But Murphy's husband died in 2004, and Lewis' wife died in 2008.

After so much time, they were both alone.

Murphy heard about the death of Lewis' wife through a relative and decided to send her condolences. She knew how hard it was to lose a spouse and wanted to offer some encouragement.

"It's hard when you lose that other part of you," Murphy says. "I wanted to tell him it's going to be hard, but it's going to get better."

They hadn't spoken in 60 years, though, and Murphy was wary. She decided to identify herself only as an old friend when she called.

But Lewis never forgot that voice.

"I know who you are," he told her. "This is Lillie."

Falling in love again, all those years later.

Murphy was shocked that he remembered after so many years and was more surprised when he called back a few weeks later.

The calls continued, at first every week or so and then every few days. Soon, they were talking every night.

They had a lot of catching up to do. He told her about his work as a minister and his travels. She told him about her children, her grandchildren and life back home in College Hill.

Conversation still came easy to them. They clicked the way they had as teenagers, chatting for hours about everything and nothing at all.

"We found out the fire was still sparking," Lewis says.

One day, Lewis called Murphy when her youngest daughter, Jacinda, was over for a visit. Her daughter couldn't help noticing her mother wasn't having a typical conversation. She'd never seen her talk like that to anyone.

"You could tell it was different," she says. "She was giggly and smiling like a young girl."

In time, Lewis realized he was falling in love with Murphy all over again, and he felt she was falling for him, too.

That's when he brought up the idea of maybe, possibly, getting married.

Lillie laughed at the thought of it. At their age? After so much time? She was happy with her life, she said. Her family was around her, and it didn't make sense to pack up and move to South Carolina, where Lewis still is pastor of his church.

So she told him no. Again.

But Lewis was undaunted. He took "no" for an answer once. He wouldn't do it again.

"You won't get away this time," he said.

He made sure of that Saturday afternoon, surrounded by friends and family at New Life Baptist Church.

The wedding didn't happen the way Lewis envisioned it 60 years ago, the first time he tried to make Murphy his wife. They walked a little more slowly, and their faces featured a few more wrinkles.

But as far as either was concerned, it was perfect.

So they held hands, said their vows and put rings on one another's fingers. And when the minister told Lewis he could kiss his bride, he did just that.

"Love betters all things," the minister said. "Love endures all things."