Together Again
It was 64 years ago on a bus ride to a destination not remembered that Yvonne (McAnallen) and Glenn Pizor first fell in love.
“There was an empty seat beside me and he said ‘Can I sit here?' and I said ‘Yes,'” Yvonne said.
The two were students at Butler High School. Yvonne was 13, and Glenn, 14.
Their bus conversations blossomed into a relationship, and they continued dating for eight years.
They talked about their future together and how they would name their first daughter Terry Lynn.
After Glenn graduated in 1951, he went into the Air Force.
Yvonne decided to study home economics at Indiana State Teachers College (now IUP) when she completed high school in 1952.
“He'd come to see me on leave and then he went to Illinois and we kind of got separated,” Yvonne said.
Without the help of Facebook, e-mail and cell phones, the two lost contact.
After leaving the Air Force, Glenn decided to get his metallurgical engineering degree from Grove City College.
He met a woman named Joan “Jo” Zoelkel and they fell in love.
The two married and settled in Butler, where Glenn got a job at Armco.
They had a son, Glenn Pizor Jr. and a daughter, Terri Lynn Pizor-Leventhal.Meanwhile, Yvonne met Don Schaffer and they married and settled in New Jersey.They had two daughters, Terry Lynn Jacobucci and Tina Iezzi-Heim.Yvonne and Glenn went on with their lives raising their families.“We believe that my mom was meant to be with my dad growing up,” Iezzi-Heim said. “I idolized my mom and dad's relationship, and I wanted a husband who treated me like he treated my mom.”It wasn't until Yvonne's husband passed away in 2006 from Parkinson's disease that Glenn and Yvonne had any contact.Glenn heard about Schaffer's passing because the men had gone to school together.“He asked Jo, ‘Can I send a sympathy card to Yvonne?' and she said, ‘By all means,'” Yvonne said.Jo and Glenn were going through a tough time themselves, as Jo had been diagnosed with breast cancer.For 10 years the family fought the cancer, but in 2008 Jo passed away.“There was no way I was going to do this — no way I was going to get married again,” Glenn said.A little while after Jo's passing, Glenn and daughter Pizor-Leventhal were going through his desk, when an envelope caught Pizor-Leventhal's attention.Inside was an old photograph of a woman dancing.“My mom was an amazing dancer,” Iezzi-Heim said. “He had apparently kept that picture of her all these years.”Glenn reminisced about his first love Yvonne with his daughter.“I didn't notice it myself, but they said ‘Boy you were really lonesome,' but I tried to keep a stiff upper lip,” Glenn said.“We were talking after he had mowed (the grass) and her name came up and I said ‘I'm going to call her' and he said ‘No,'” Pizor-Leventhal said.Pizor-Leventhal decided to call Yvonne just to prove to her father she would.“One day, I was sitting in my apartment and the phone rang, and it was this girl and she said ‘You don't know who I am, but I'm Terri Lynn and I'm Glenn Pizor's daughter,” Yvonne said.
The two clicked instantly and talked for about 90 minutes.When the phone conversation ended, Yvonne went on with her life for another year and a half.Until one day Glenn got the urge to contact Yvonne himself.“I was sitting at the table one night and they say sometimes you hear words and something said ‘Go ahead and call her. It will be OK,'” Glenn said.He got up the courage to call Yvonne about 8 p.m. on June 5, 2010, after not speaking to her for more than 50 years.The two talked for an hour and before hanging up Glenn told Yvonne if she ever wanted to talk again, she could call him anytime.Staying awake until 2 or 3 in the morning, Yvonne wrote Glenn a letter, pouring all her thoughts and emotions onto the paper.She thought she'd hold on to it for a couple of weeks before mailing it, but after speaking with her daughters, she knew she should mail it right away.“She was like a little school kid,” Iezzi-Heim said. “Her heart was probably fluttering and she was so excited.”Glenn wrote back quickly. Yvonne remembered reading “I don't know how to begin. I haven't seen you in 55 years, and I know if I wouldn't have gone to the service and you to college, we would have gotten married, but I think it was God's plan for me to meet Jo.“I think before you are even born that God has a plan for you.”After Yvonne read the letter, they started talking daily on the phone.Glenn asked Yvonne to visit him in Butler.“She has family and friends up there, and I said ‘Well mom, he needs to come here and meet us before you go up there,'” said Iezzi-Heim. “I was being the protective daughter.”Glenn agreed to come to New Jersey with his daughter to meet Yvonne's family.“Between that time, we talked about 44 times on the phone,” Yvonne said. “At first it was 9 o'clock every evening and then it got to be 9 in the morning.”When the day came to see each other face to face again, Yvonne's daughter Jacobucci had everything planned.
Jacobucci would meet Glenn and his daughter Pizor-Leventhal at the door, then take everyone to the other room to give them some space.“I waited and he was late. I was a nervous wreck and finally the red car pulled up,” Yvonne said. “... he came to the front door and I opened it up and he didn't give me one kiss, he gave me three.”From that point on, the couple has been inseparable. Yvonne left with Glenn after his visit to New Jersey to go back to Butler.Before she returned home for the holidays, Glenn asked Yvonne to get rid of her apartment and go with him to his condo in Florida.She agreed and came back to Butler with a car full of boxes on Dec. 29, 2010, and the two flew to Fort Myers together, where they stayed for the winter.After a few months of living together Glenn made an important decision.“He said, ‘This is silly, we're not going to live in sin anymore. We need to do the right thing. Will you marry me?'” Yvonne said.Glenn called the Rev. Dave Panther at First United Methodist Church of Butler where he was a member.Glenn said, “I was going to First United Methodist Church for a long time and Dave Panther and I have gotten to be good friends and I said, ‘Dave we just decided to get married.'”Glenn, 78, and Yvonne, 77, were married May 28, 2011, at the First United Methodist Church with a reception at the Butler County Club.The two families welcomed the newly rekindled love and parents into their lives.During the ceremony, Iezzi-Heim and Pizor-Leventhal recited a poem sharing their parents' love story written by Iezzi-Heim.Iezzi-Heim said, “I'm sure that my dad and Jo, his wife, are shining down from heaven.”
