Mazel tov to Henry Kerr and Valerie Berkowitz in a wedding that just took place in an old age home in London. Kerr is 97 and Berkowitz is 87.
After he moved into the old age home, he was struck by her and spent four years trying to win her over.
Proving that you are never too old to find love, Henry Kerr, 97, and Valerie Berkowitz, 87, are marrying at Sunridge Court residential home in Golders Green.
When Henry Kerr met an attractive younger woman, he feared she wouldn't give an older man a second glance.
So he embarked on a four-year campaign to win over the object of his affections, writing her love poetry and spending hours exchanging life stories.
And yesterday, 97-year- old Mr Kerr proved you can't hurry love, when he finally wed his younger companion - Valerie Berkowitz, 87.He said: 'I would have asked her much earlier, if I had thought such an attractive, witty young lady of 87 would have anything to do with an old codger like me.'
When they started talking, the pair discovered they had both lived in South Africa, and both had families scattered across the world.
Mr Kerr believed his love life was over following his wife Gladys's death in 2004, but said he was 'struck like a thunderbolt' when he met Mrs Berkowitz at the North London care home they share.
He said: 'I thought she found me pushy and conceited - until she acquired an analytical interest in the poems I read at the poetry circle I founded when I moved in here. Then we found our affinities.'
He wrote several love poems in an attempt to win her affections.
Mr Kerr, who moved to the care home in 2006 when he was 94, said: 'When I did ask her to marry me a few months ago she went hysterical - she put her head down on the table and couldn't stop laughing.'
Even once Mrs Berkowitz had accepted the proposal, the couple expected to stay permanently engaged to avoid the ' complication' of marriage.
But Mr Kerr, who ran an investment company before retirement, said: 'I felt people were whispering behind their hands and gossiping about us moving in together, and that it was important for us to be Mr and Mrs.'
The couple finally married in a traditional Jewish ceremony yesterday at their care home in Golders Green, followed by a high tea for 90 guests.
Beautiful story, and they helped solve the shidduch crisis - he married someone ten years younger!
Actually, that doesn't help the shidduch crisis, as in fact, it makes it worse, b/c it's now a 10 year gap. We need more older women to marry younger men!
ReplyDeleteyou are right. I actually meant to say that by marrying a girl older than 18-19 he has helped solve the shidduch crisis..
ReplyDeleteOk, in that case, that really helped out the crisis!
ReplyDelete