The second time around
Couple finds love at Brittany Pointe Estates
It’s not unheard of for residents at one of Acts’ nearly twodozen retirement communities in eight states to meet and marry, but it is exceedingly rare, according to Acts communication manager Brian Donathan. “I didn’t figure on getting remarried either. But things happen and we’re enjoying it.” — Tom Garin
True love can surely blossom any time, at any age and in the least likely of places ... but it sure helps to have a spiffy new car to help break the ice.
Back in 2013, not long after his wife passed away, Tom Garin — who had been a resident of Brittany Pointe Estates, an Acts retirement community in Upper Gwynedd, for about a year — decided to buy a Mercedes coupe “to keep myself entertained,” he said.
Then one day he noticed a woman he fancied from afar — a recent arrival to Brittany Pointe who was showing her family around her new home.
“She came up to me and said, ‘Ohh, I hear you got a new car!’” Tom remembered with a smile. “At least at that point I knew she knew I was alive.”
The woman’s name was Adele, and Garin asked her if she wanted to go for a ride sometime.
“We kind of got together after that,” he said.
“But he only asked me out on Tuesdays!” Adele said, eying Tom as the couple sat together in a Brittany Pointe lounge on a recent morning.
“Well, I have other people I eat with on Sundays, and Saturdays I was busy, too ...,” Tom replied with an impish smile.
But one Tuesday date led to another, and another, and the rest is history: Tom and Adele Garin eventually got hitched, and on May 3, they’ll celebrate their third wedding anniversary.
It’s not unheard of for residents at one of Acts’ nearly two-dozen retirement communities in eight states to meet and marry, but it is exceedingly rare, according to Acts communication manager Brian Donathan.
Tom said that during the nearly five years he’s lived at Brittany Pointe, he knows of only one other couple who got married there — and they were already together when they moved in.
“See — I robbed the cradle!” Tom, who’s 86, laughed when Adele tells this reporter that she’s 75 years old.
Sitting together, the spry couple exudes the type of mirth and timing you might find in a long-running comedy team. When asked what first attracted each to the other, Tom doesn’t miss a beat.
“Sex!” he said brightly, eliciting a hilariously horrified look from Adele.
“As you can see, there is never a dull moment with him,” she replies drily, shaking her head in mock disgust. “So I guess that’s what I like best about him.”
“We have a good time together, we enjoy each other’s company,” Tom replied, gazing affectionately at his grinning wife.
A native of Flushing, N.Y., Tom said he was an avid bicycle racer in his younger years and known around town as the “Flushing Flyer” — he said he missed a chance to go to the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, Finland, “by an inch” at the preliminary time trials. Later, he held a job in the engineering department at Mobil Oil for 30 years.
“Now I’m retired almost as long as I worked there,” he said.
Adele was born in Philadelphia but has lived in the local suburbs most of her life. She worked at General Electric, then got married and started a family with her late husband, living in Chalfont for more than four decades. She still works on Wednesdays as a bookkeeper at an area accounting firm where she’s been employed for 36 years.
“I will not give up the job,” she said.
“It’s so nice to go to work, and I don’t have to put up with him!” she added, jabbing her thumb at Tom as he laughed.
“It’s a peace and quiet day,” she continues, getting in another playful shot at her husband.
The couple said that Tom popped the question to Adele on the dance floor during a Brittany Pointe soiree. She said yes, and they were married in 2014, with Tom slipping his mother’s wedding ring on Adele’s finger.
Then, the pair got into that Mercedes coupe that first brought them together and departed on their honeymoon — a month-long drive around the United States that included a stay with some of Adele’s relatives in North Carolina, visits to Graceland, Carlsbad Caverns and the Grand Canyon and some relaxation in San Diego.
Tom said he only got one speeding ticket during the trip, in Wyoming, although he managed to talk his way out of another one in North Carolina.
“He said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, we just got married!’ and the officer just looked at us ...,” Adele said.
“He was probably thinking, ‘What, you two old geezers?!” Tom laughed.
And yes, Adele accompanied her husband all the way home in that little car, rather than taking a bus or a flight, she laughed.
“Being in a car together for a month, that’s togetherness,” she smiled.
As for how their families felt about the couple getting married, Adele looked at Tom and said with a serious expression that her two sons “weren’t sure about him,” before winking and breaking into a smile.
“They’re fine with him, and so are the grandkids,” she said.
Tom said that his daughter was very happy that he fell in love with and married Adele.
Tom and Adele have more road trips in mind — a drive to Maine and Canada is in the works — but mostly they’re just happy to spend their days together at Brittany Pointe and in the community, looking forward to whatever comes next.
“I never planned on getting married again, but he’s a great guy — you just have to stay on your toes!” Adele laughed.
“I didn’t figure on getting remarried either,” Tom said. “But things happen and we’re enjoying it.”