Couple with 8th- grade crush reunited 71 years later
He still likes her giggle as they reminisce about their lives and that boy and girl long ago
For most of us, our teen crushes live on only as bittersweet memories.
For Grace Lesinski, hers showed up recently on the list of new residents at the New Berlin senior apartment complex where she lives.
“I saw the name and thought, ‘Oh, it can’t be.’ I mean, how many Ralph Wisniewskis are there?” she said. So she knocked on his door. A man much older than the handsome 14-year-old she remembered swung it open. He looked at the grayhaired lady standing there.
“And I said are you the Ralph that graduated from St. Mary Magdalen, and he said yes. I said I’m Grace.”
He was indeed the Ralph Wisniewski she fell for in their years together at the south side Milwaukee Catholic school. He also lived across the street from her near 19th and Arthur in a Polish neighborhood.
Ralph was her first kiss. It says so right there in the memory book that Grace filled out about her life and gave to her youngest daughter, JoAnn Ley. Grace checked the box describing the kiss as “awkward” but added, “got better.”
After grade school graduation, they went to different high schools — she to Pulaski, he to Notre Dame. Their innocent romance flickered out.
They both married, she for 60 years to John, he for 54 years to Elizabeth. They had children and grandchildren, and in recent years were widowed.
Now, 71 years after that crazy mutual crush, they have been tossed back together by chance, fate, divine intervention or however you want to see it. They’re in no hurry to label what they have now.
“It’s difficult to explain. You just like it,” Ralph, 85, said when I sat down with him and Grace, 84, at Regency Senior Communities where they live two floors apart.
“We get together once in a while and visit back and forth,” Grace said. “Monday night bingo he’s been coming, and we’ve had dinner a few times here.”
They were playful together as they sat side by side on Ralph’s couch and told me their story. JoAnn was there and she said her mom seems more buoyant these days. And Ralph told Grace he likes her giggle.
It didn’t take much to roll back the years. They finished at St. Mary Magdalen in 1947.
“There were times when you gave me a ride on your bike. You know the boys had that extra bar and I’d sit on there,” said Grace, whose last name was Nowakowski back then.
“We went cruising down those alleys,” Ralph said. “I remember going to the ice skating rink, too.”
“I considered him my first boyfriend. Now you’re hearing all this,” Grace said, looking sheepishly toward Chris Vedbraaten, Ralph’s youngest daughter who also joined us for the interview.
“I had a crush,” Ralph said, and it didn’t hurt that Grace also helped him with his school work.
Grace still has an autograph book from 1945 that Ralph signed: “Dear Grace, when you get married and have a hubby, I hope he is a little chubby.” His signature includes his nickname, Wisz, and boasts, “The best in the world.”
Grace hoped back then that their romance would continue into high school, but Ralph didn’t ask her out. He said he became busy with his new school friends and sports.
Grace met John when she was a senior in high school and they married in 1955. Along came four daughters, Barbara, Doreen, Carolyn and JoAnn. The couple built their longtime home in New Berlin and moved into the Regency in 2013. John died in 2016.
Ralph, after a few years in the Air Force, met Elizabeth when he asked her to dance at a neighborhood bar. They married in 1958. Along came five children, Mark, Kathy, John, Jeanne and Chris. They lived most of their married life in Muskego, and Ralph worked 40 years at Allen-Bradley. Elizabeth, “Liz,” died in 2012.
When Ralph moved to the Regency earlier this year, he had no idea Grace was there. They had not been in touch over the years. He said she has helped the new place feel more like home.
Sweet surprises can happen at any age. Grace and Ralph, even as they both still wear the wedding rings from their long marriages, are now enjoying each other’s company again and reminiscing all these years after their crush cooled.
“I don’t know if it cooled,” Ralph slyly corrected me. “Oh, Ralph, you’re funny,” Grace laughed, gently touching his arm.
Contact Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or jstingl@jrn.com. Connect with my public page at Facebook.com/Journalist.Jim.Stingl
Now, 71 years after that crazy mutual crush, they have been tossed back together by chance, fate, divine intervention or however you want to see it. They’re in no hurry to label what they have now.