Rarely do you come across a made-for-TV love story quite like Dennis and Karen’s.
The teens met and fell madly in love in high school back in the 1950s, but their Nicholas Sparks ending wouldn’t come full circle for more than five decades.
When Karen became pregnant, her parents banned her from seeing Dennis and decided that adoption would be the best option for all involved. Smitten with his girlfriend, Dennis tried to propose in an attempt to save the relationship and grow their new family together, but he was met with a firm “no” by all the adults in their lives.
Shortly after their baby girl Jean was put up for adoption, Dennis joined the army and Karen went off to college.
Though they missed each other dearly, they wouldn’t speak again for over fifty years.
But not a day went by that Dennis didn’t think about Karen and the beautiful life they could’ve shared together.
Then, on October 25, 2014, one of Dennis’ friends asked him to join LinkedIn. In the process, he couldn’t help but do a quick search for his long-lost sweetheart. Earlier attempts to find her had failed, but there was still a glimmer of hope in the old man’s heart that it was not too late.
Lo and behold, he was right.
He searched “Karen Lehmann,” and in an uncanny stroke of fate, she turned out to be the third person on the list.
Once he got in contact with Karen, the rest was history. They both turned out to be single—so after more than fifty years apart, these two wasted NO time rekindling the romance. She picked him up on a Monday night, and the two lovebirds were married by that Thursday morning at 11 a.m.
A tearful Dennis was overwhelmed with emotion and gratitude after finding his sweet bride back in his arms once again… but there was still one thing missing.
“He said, ‘I found you and now my life would be complete if we found our daughter,” Karen explained in an interview with Steve Harvey.
“We did some research with the adoption agency, and by the grace of God we located her,” said Dennis.
Full of tears, smiles, and laugh lines painted by their fifty years of waiting, their reunion was nothing short of magical.
“Imagine being 55 years old and you hear that your parents are together and that they’re looking for you,” said Jeanie of the unbelievable experience.
Thankfully, Steve Harvey got in contact with this beautiful family whose reunion was a half-century in the making and put it on display for America to see. Watch their emotional interview in the segment below:
