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Ken and Helen Meade After 52 years apart, they make up for lost time Today marks first anniversary for octogenarian couple By JULIE SWENSEN It's not very often that you hear a love story like Ken and Helen Meade's. Separated by circumstance, the Medford couple found each other again after 52 years apart. Today is their first wedding anniversary. Their tale begins back in 1945 in San Diego, when Helen was 34 and Ken was 33. They met through a friend at a dance, where Ken kissed Helen for the first time. They started an eight-month courtship, spending time together dancing at a bar and taking drives down to Tijuana. But one day Ken received a call at the shipyard where he worked. Helen told him she had to leave him and move to Oregon. The couple today still won't delve into why they parted ways, other than to say she had to go to her family and there were circumstances beyond their control. They started writing to each other, but then they didn't anymore. "I didn't know where she was for 52 years," Ken said. Through their half-century apart, Helen married and had three children. But still, many times a week, she'd think about Ken. When someone said the name "Ken," he came to her mind, she said. She never forgot him. "It just never went away. It was just one of those things that I couldn't get out of my system," Helen said. "It was kind of a lonesome feeling. I just never felt I was fulfilled because I was missing him." Ken also married and had a daughter. But still, he kept Helen in his heart; when someone said the name "Helen," she came to his mind. He never forgot her. When he visited friends in Nebraska, he stopped several times in Verdigre, the town where Helen was raised. He had hoped that by chance he'd run into her. But he didn't. After his wife died in 1997, Ken, who was living in Portland, was talking to a friend on the phone who told him that Helen was living in Medford. He got Helen's number and gave her a call. Helen, whose husband died in 1989, first said, "Ken who?" But when she found out who he was, she said, "When are you coming down?" He came down on Sept. 1 last year. When he arrived at her door, it was as if no time had passed, said Ken, who paused and got a little emotional. Helen, who also got choked up, said, "The 52 years weren't there at all." Helen learned of how Ken had gone searching for her in Verdigre. It made her feel really good, but still sad that they didn't meet there, she said. Now 87, Helen said she very much regrets the years that she and Ken, 86, spent apart. "We missed a lot on happiness -- complete happiness -- for not being together," Helen said. "But we're making up for that right now." The couple finally married Oct. 26 last year in her living room. The newlyweds now spend their days eating out, playing cards, watching television, walking hand in hand and taking one day at a time. Said Ken, "When I fall in love, I fall in love forever." Mail Tribune Copyright � interRogue & The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA