More than 55 years ago Bill and Joan were college sweethearts. Now, after a lifetime apart, the two United Spinal members are newlyweds.

By Chris Pierson

William Lee of Long Island and Joan Rhodes of Massachusetts first met as students at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Bill was a pianist and Joan was studying voice. It was 1951.

“We met between theory classes,” Bill recalls.

The romance lasted two years, before Joan’s mother, fearing the two would get married and drop out, put a stop to it. “It was probably for the best,” Bill says now. After graduation in 1954, the two former college sweethearts went their separate ways.

Joan joined Sam Snyder’s Water Follies, a traveling swim spectacular based in Boston, in which she finally got her chance to sing (and swim) professionally. After a year and a half of touring all over the US, Canada, Mexico and Australia, Joan fell in love with a local trumpet player during a run in Spokane, Washington. Thirteen months later, they married and started a family—they had one son—in Spokane. “I lived there for forty nine years,” Joan says, “and in the same house since 1957.”

Meanwhile, after a stint in the Army, Bill studied for his MBA at Northwestern University in Chicago and started a business (and a family of his own) in Maryland. He was also an active commissioned officer in the Naval Reserve for 22 years, retiring in 1998.

Early on, Bill and Joan kept up on news about each other through her parents, mostly, with whom Bill managed to stay in touch. But as will often happen in matters of the heart, as time passed, the ties that bound were loosened and all but lost.

Twists of Fate

By some strange coincidence, fate—“the hand of God,” Bill says—dealt both Bill and Joan a more challenging than average hand as the years passed.

As he progressed through his forties, Bill began to find it more and more difficult to speak and to walk. At first, he thought he was developing multiple sclerosis. In fact, the condition was finally diagnosed as a condition called dominant spinocerebellar Ataxia (SCA) type 6, which in many cases attacks both the cerebellum and the spine.

“It’s a genetic condition,” Bill says. “I’m third generation—everyone in my family had it, even though any individual’s chance of developing it from a parent with Ataxia is fifty-fifty.” Bill’s children have each taken precautions not to pass on the genes to the next generation. “My daughter went to China and adopted two girls,” he says. “My son’s wife had in vitro twin boys.”

Bill’s Ataxia has made it necessary for him to use a walker. “I call her Rosie,” Bill says. “She goes everywhere with me—Iceland, England and France, to mention a few.”

Meanwhile, on the West Coast, Joan was getting around in a wheelchair as the result of an incomplete injury at T-6 in an automobile accident in 1980. Joan’s husband, who was not seriously injured in the accident and to whom she had been happily married for more than 30 years, died in October 1991.

Love Reconnection

Bill, for his part, had been a bachelor since his divorce in 1979, and the more time that passed, the more confirmed he became in his bachelorhood. But in 2002, when he chanced upon a book about the Eastman School of Music in which he found a photograph of Joan, he says he instantly thought, “I bet Joan would like this.”

The couple hadn’t spoken in years. Bill wasn’t even sure he could find her. The only number he had for her was given to him by her long-gone parents many years before. Having nothing to lose, he gave it a shot. To his delight, Joan answered the phone.

And so began the rekindling of a romance— although, with 3,000 miles between them, it would take some time before the embers of their former love would burst into outright flame.

Joan was the first to “pop the question.”

“We have such a wonderful relationship,” she said after several mutually pleasurable conversations. “Let’s get married!”

But Bill, still confirmed in his bachelorhood and skeptical about their ability to bridge the real distance between them, put on the brakes. Nevertheless, he could not disguise his tender feelings for Joan, and she couldn’t miss them if he tried.

“If you care for me so much, you’ll marry me,” she said during another call. “At this stage of life, there’s no time to lose.”

In early 2005, Joan found a way to make it worth Bill’s while to come West and see her: She invited him on a five-day seniors’ excursion that June along the Columbia River to Portland, Oregon. Bill accepted the invitation.

Happily Ever After

When Bill arrived in Spokane and finally saw his Joan after a separation of more than 50 years, he says, “My heart went pitter pat. Our feelings were still there!” They spent a glorious time on an accessible tour bus, cruising past Mount St. Helens, down through southeastern Washington and across the whole state of Oregon, finally stopping in Portland. They spent a romantic afternoon, having arrived just in time for the city’s annual Rose Festival, talking of the amazing sights they’d seen. “But the most amazing thing on the whole trip was the lady who invited me,” Bill says. “It took me about 20 seconds after seeing her to decide I would marry her.”

Back in Spokane, it was Bill’s turn to pop the question. Is it necessary to say she accepted?

The couple were joined in holy matrimony in Spokane in a Baha’i ceremony on Joan’s front porch September 14, 2005. They honeymooned belatedly on an Alaskan cruise on the Island Princess in May 2006, during which they renewed their vows so Joan could realize a lifelong dream to be married at sea by a ship’s captain. Now they are happily settled in Frederick with their caretaker Donna—“Joan calls her our daughter,” says Bill.

Besides their marriage, their home, and their caretaker, the Lees also have membership in United Spinal in common. Bill, who had co-founded and served as president and treasurer of the Chesapeake Chapter of the National Ataxia Foundation, was the first to join United Spinal Association. “Joan is not usually a joiner,” he says. “But now we both enjoy reading Action.”

Happy Valentines Day, then, Joan and Bill. This Action is for you!

Post Script: As Action was going to press, we learned that Joan Lee was recuperating from a serious infection and intestinal surgery. Bill told Action that she was “making progress” and was determined to fully recover. We wish Joan a speedy recovery.

Chris Pierson is managing editor of Action.