2 lonely souls rekindle a love more than 60 years later
By Tanya Bricking Leach
Advertiser Staff Writer
After his wife of 60 years passed away, Harry Cooper began to think of himself as "a lonely old hermit."
Photos courtesy of Harry Cooper
A few years went by, and he reflected on his past and started to wonder what ever happened to Erma Benner, his high school sweetheart from Kingsville, Ontario, in Canada.
Harry Cooper knew his first love as Erma Benner, and she called him "Coop," at Kingsville High School in Ontario, Canada. She was always "the prettiest girl at the prom," he says. They still have this 1938 photo taken after a dance.
Cooper, 87, who had retired to Hawai'i Kai, remembered that Erma had married someone with the last name of Farlin years ago and moved to Michigan. From his 10 years of running the Aloha Week festival, Cooper remembered finding telephone directories at the Hawai'i State Library. He decided to head to the library to see if he could get his hands on a Michigan phone book.
He didn't find a phone book, but he found a helpful librarian, who got on the computer and came up with a list of about 20 Farlins in Michigan.
Cooper wrote to all of them, telling them about how he had lost touch with Erma.
"I thought it was a shot in the dark," he said.
Erma Farlin never received a letter, but her daughter, Lisa, who had kept her maiden name, did. Erma's daughter encouraged her to reconnect with her old friend. So, a lifetime after parting ways, Erma phoned the man she used to call "Coop."
Turns out Erma also had been married for 60 years, and she was recently widowed. Her heart ached for comfort again.
She started the conversation by asking about Cooper's wife, Nancy.
"I said, 'I lost her,' " Cooper recalled.
She said she had lost her spouse, too.
They felt soothed by each other's words, and telephone conversations became part of their routine. Coop would call his old girlfriend daily at 5 p.m. Hawai'i time (11 p.m. at Erma's in Rochester, Mich., just as she'd be getting ready for bed), and they got reacquainted.
Erma Farlin, 83, and Harry Cooper, 87, now plan to marry. "We spent our youth together," she says. "And now, we'll spend the better part of our old age together."
It was back in Canada, 70 years earlier, when Erma was a freshman and Coop was a senior at Kingsville High School, that they had begun dating. She graduated in 1938. By then, Coop was ready to enter the work force, and he applied for a job with Air Canada in Toronto. Erma got him a ride to the interview, on a hog truck. Coop got the job, and proceeded to marry a stewardess. He and Erma lost track of each other.
It took many decades and the deaths of their spouses two years apart for their timing to work out.
Coop says he's "robbing the cradle" again.
This summer confirmed their romance. Erma spent the month of June in Hawai'i, and Coop spent August in Michigan.
By then, they had already decided: They were going to get married.
Erma, 83, who still works part-time at a clothing boutique, had lived on the same street in Rochester for 52 years. She decided to put the house up for sale. Her neighbors threw a going-away party, and her daughter hosted a lu'au.
If the house doesn't sell right away, Erma says she's taking off for Hawai'i anyway.
The wedding plans are up in the air. It will be something small, maybe on the beach with a pair of attendants.
The bride and groom already have been wearing their wedding bands, Hawaiian rings decorated with maile lei.
"We spent our youth together," Erma said. "And now, we'll spend the better part of our old age together."
Combined, they have three daughters, two sons, three granddaughters and twin great-grandsons.
"May our merger be full of happiness forever," he wrote in a letter to Erma's friends in Michigan. He promised to take care of her always, and he defended taking her off to Hawai'i, half-jokingly explaining, "I saw her first."
He says there's no reason to wait for an official marriage license to tell their love story.
Time is short, he said, and they've already waited long enough.
Tanya Bricking Leach writes about relationships. If you'd like her to tell your love story, write to tleach@honoluluadvertiser.com, call 525-8026 or mail your photo and details to Love Stories, Tanya Bricking Leach, The Honolulu Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802.
