Teresa

Cute

Couple Reunite After More Than 60 Years
AP
ADRIAN, Mich. (Feb. 13) - Willard Mason and Ilah Ost are
giving new meaning to the phrase: "Love is patient." More
than 60 years ago, the couple were engaged to be married,
but life's circumstances got in the way.

Now, after they each married others, raised families and
their spouses died, the two are together again.

"Ilah was my first girlfriend," Mason told The Daily
Telegram. "I first met her when I was a sophomore at
Blissfield High School."

The two began dating and got engaged.

But in 1941, Mason moved to Ypsilanti to work at the Willow
Run bomber plant. There, he met a woman named Helvi, and
broke his engagement to Ost. He married Helvi in 1942.

Ost later married her husband, Marvin, and had three
children before he died in 1974.

Mason's wife died in 2003, and by chance, he ran into Ost's
brother in Blissfield in 2004, and he encouraged Mason to
call Ost.

The two started dating, with Mason driving from his home
near Houghton Lake to Adrian, where Ost lived.

On one of his trips to Adrian, Mason blacked out and struck
a tree with his car. Tests showed he needed a new
pacemaker, Mason said.

He then moved to near Adrian and invited Ost to move in
with him.

"We get along perfectly," Mason said. "We've never had an
argument. She's a great cook, and she takes care of me."

Mason and Ost spend much of their time with friends and
family, and Mason marvels at how the two have gotten back
together after so many years.

"You don't know how our lives might have turned out if we'd
gotten married in 1941," Mason said. "But now, she has a
wonderful family and so do I."