WINFIELD TWP — Diane Vercoe remembers moving to her late grandmother’s house in Elco, Washington County, when she was 5 years old.

She ran into the yard and saw a boy of 10 playing with her brother.

The boy had a headful or bright red hair and freckles to match.

“I just remember standing there staring at him,” she said. “It was weird because everything around me stopped.”

That boy, now 78-year old Lee Vercoe, remembers being in sixth grade and a teacher herding Diane’s kindergarten class into his classroom.

“She came right over to my desk,” he recalled.

As the two lived out their childhoods, Lee, whose hair has now changed from red to white, remained friends with Diane’s brother, Doug, so the two were in each other’s presence relatively frequently.

“They’d play baseball, and I’d go running over the hill for the ball,” Diane recalled. “Another time, we dug a big hole and pretended it was our fort.”

Lee eventually went away to college at California University of Pennsylvania, now PennWest California, where he would earn a degree in math and physics.

“I used to watch for his car when he came home on weekends,” Diane said.

Diane recalls the Plymouth he drove when he did his student teaching in Elco and lived at home, and bringing him toast for breakfast in the morning.

“While I was in college, she was in high school,” Lee said.

He got a teaching fellowship in Terra Haute, Ind., and was gone for two years.

“When I came home, we started dating,” Lee said.

Although the couple were happy and enjoyed one another’s company, they decided that the age gap — he was 24 and she was 18 — was too great at that time, and they broke up.

“I really liked her, but she was too young,” Lee said.

“I didn’t know how it was going to happen or when, but I always knew we were going to be together someday,” Diane said.

Lee got a job at Penn State University, married and moved to Wyano, Pa.

Diane also married, and the couple moved to a town not far from Wyano, although they never ran into each other there.

Diane divorced in 1989 and enrolled in nursing school at Waynesburg College, now Waynesburg University, where she met her second husband. He died unexpectedly in 2019 while the couple was living in South Carolina.

Lee had divorced his first wife after 12 years and moved back to Elco, where he bought a fixer-upper. He remarried in 1990, and the couple moved to an apartment at Concordia independent living when his wife’s health began to decline.

During all this time, Lee and Diane would see each other at family weddings and parties, as Lee remained friends with Diane’s brother through the years.

After Diane’s husband died, she moved back to Elco and struck up a friendship with Lee’s sister, Phyllis, who is 12 years older than him.

Diane would run into Lee when he came to see his sister while she was visiting.

“We would have lunch together,” Diane said.

Lee’s wife died after three years in nursing care at Concordia at Cabot. Lee spent almost all of his time at her bedside.

After that, the two, who had long been a part of each other’s lives, found themselves spending more time together.

“We officially started meeting (without Lee’s sister) in March of 2023,” Lee said. “We would meet at Walmart and ride around the Laurel Highlands.”

After decades of chance encounters, the couple decided they had no more time to spare.

“We decided that all this time we waited for each other, so we decided we didn’t want to wait for anything else, so we got married,” Diane said.

Diane’s brother and Lee’s friend, Doug, gave the bride away and served as best man, and Lee’s sister, Phyllis, served as matron of honor at the wedding in Uniontown.

Lee’s cousin married the couple, who were 71 and 78, respectively, at their wedding on Sept. 2, 2023.

Diane chose a tea-length peach dress with a white lace overlay for her life’s last nuptials.

“I just wanted to look as good as I could because I’m not a kid anymore,” she said.

“She was beautiful,” Lee said. “I’ll never forget that feeling.”

Diane said after her second husband died, people would ask her if she planned to look for another love.

“I said ‘No, I’m going to wait for Lee,’” she said. “I didn’t want anyone else.”

Although it could be said that the couple would have enjoyed decades of married life if they had stayed together when they were young, Lee wonders if he was the man back then that Diane deserved.

“Young men can be stupid,” Lee said. “Oh well, you can’t turn back the clock, and I’m happy we are together now.”

The couple enjoys watching science fiction shows, Marvel movies, hunting for antiques and especially laughing together.

“It was hard to laugh the last four years (as Lee’s wife received nursing care),” Lee said.

They also love to get together with Diane’s son and granddaughter, and Lee’s three stepdaughters and their children.

Diane said getting together after the respective deaths of their spouses was made easier by the fact that they already knew each other.

Lee said Diane has improved his health through better eating habits and taking supplements, as he had ignored his own health during the years his late wife was ill.

One piece of physical evidence exists that proves Lee and Diane were destined to be together, not that they need one.

When they dated in the 1970s, Lee bought Diane a pendant engraved with her initials on one side and the words “Waiting Is” from the book “Stranger in a Strange Land” on the other.

“That was pretty prophetic,” Diane said as she lifted the keepsake from around her neck to give it a look.

Also, Lee drew a portrait all those years ago of Diane’s senior picture.

“I kept it the whole time,” Diane said.

The couple’s love story is displayed on the wall of their Concordia apartment, where Diane moved after the wedding.

One black and white photo shows a hip young couple standing arm in arm. Lee and Diane recreated the photo when they began seeing each other last year.

Asked how long they will be together, Diane answers immediately and Lee agrees.

“Until we die,” she said.