Lifestyle

Chuck Lost His Teenage Sweetheart and Both Married Others. Then, Widowed, He Found Her Two Hours Away: “I Figured I Lost Her 67 Years Ago”

By Erica Coleman · November 13, 2026

Chuck McAdoo kept a little picture of Rosella for most of his life.

He was a young teenager when he first saw her, according to NBC’s report on the couple. They started dating, but not long after, Chuck joined the Navy and served in World War II. He never heard from his sweetheart again.

Life went on the way it does. Chuck married someone else. So did Rosella. Decades passed, and each of them built a life with someone else.

Then both of those marriages ended the hardest way. Chuck became a widower, living in St. Petersburg, Florida. And 67 years after he lost track of her, WESH 2 News reported, he decided to try to find Rosella.

He made a few phone calls and could hardly believe his luck. Rosella was a widow too, and she was living just two hours away in Mount Dora.

“I figured I lost her 67 years ago. I’ll be darned if I was doing it now,” Chuck told WESH reporter Aixa Diaz.

They did not wait long. Chuck and Rosella were married on Valentine’s Day in 2010, and when WESH caught up with them in February 2011 they were celebrating their first anniversary as husband and wife. NBC’s report gave Chuck’s age at the time as 86.

“We feel this was our first and last love,” Rosella said in the WESH report.

Their story spread quickly. “Live with Regis and Kelly” called it one of the world’s greatest love stories, and the couple flew to New York City to appear on the show. They told WESH that the trip would be the honeymoon they never had.

Asked for advice, Chuck kept it simple. “Follow your heart, and not to give up,” he said, as quoted in NBC’s report. “If you see someone you love, and you truly love them, keep after them until you finally marry them.”

Chuck and Rosella are not as unusual as they might seem. A Pew Research Center analysis of census data found that in 2013, 50% of previously married adults ages 65 and older had remarried, up from just 34% in 1960. Pew said rising life expectancy may be part of the reason. People are living long enough to want, and find, another chapter.

For widows and widowers who are thinking about marrying again, timing can matter for money. The Social Security Administration says a surviving spouse may be eligible for survivor benefits if they are 60 or older (or 50 to 59 with a disability), were married for at least nine months before the spouse’s death, and did not remarry before age 60 (age 50 with a disability). In other words, remarrying later in life does not automatically rule out benefits based on a late spouse’s work record, but the age rules are specific.

Because every situation is different, it is worth calling Social Security or checking your own record before a wedding date is set. It is also a good time to review beneficiary designations on life insurance, retirement accounts and bank accounts, which often still name a late spouse. A will or estate plan written for a first marriage may not reflect a second one.

None of that was what Chuck was thinking about when he picked up the phone. He was thinking about a girl in a photograph.

He looked at that picture every day, he said. Then he went and found her.

This article is for general information and is not financial or legal advice. The couple’s story is from WESH 2 News’ 2011 report and NBC’s report on the same couple; benefit rules are from the Social Security Administration and can change. This article was produced with the assistance of AI and fact-checked against the sources cited by LightWave Reports.