April love may be for the very young, but love in the time of shortening days has its own charms.

By JACQUIN SANDERS

© St. Petersburg Times, published October 29, 1999

TARPON SPRINGS -- Elaine Low's first two marriages began plainly. Her third, last weekend, was an Event.

"This time I want to be married in a church," she said, half an hour before the ceremony began at the Church of the Bayou in Tarpon Springs.

"I want flowers all over the place and a beautiful long dress. I want to walk down an aisle with about 100 relatives watching. I want flower girls and an organ and a bagpiper piping Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms. I want . . . I want. . . ."

The bride, who is 78 years old, laughed and finished her thought. "I want everything.

"I met an interesting man," Elaine Low told her grandson and good friend, David Boon, last summer.

"He wants to be my boyfriend," she went on. A little uneasily, she added: "I think he wants to be more than my boyfriend."

A couple of weeks passed. Then, beaming but still uncomfortable at disclosing a new romance at her age, Low told a family gathering that she would marry Colin McGregor, 86, on Oct. 23.

Once they got used to the idea, the wedding announcement pleased Low's immediate progeny (four children, 17 grandchildren, 22 great-grandchildren, and four great-great-grandchildren). Many began planning treks from as far away as Washington state and California.

The bride is attractive, toned and not even breathing hard after a long, difficult life. Until Saturday, she lived alone. She drives herself to work every day, never slows down. She is a woman who knows how to run things and often does.

"You look cute, Mother," comes the verdict from daughter Barbara Patten (out of camera range) after her sister, Bonnie Boon, positions Elaine Low's bridal headpiece. "We have a very cute mother."  [Times photo: Cherie Diez]

Among her memories are 10 years as a missionary in the Far East and a pair of 20- to 30-year marriages, both with some good years, both with unhappy endings.

The bridegroom is Colin McGregor, 86, a deceptively mild-looking Scotsman, who lost his wife, Helen, last spring after 64 quietly satisfactory years of marriage, the last three dominated by her fatal illness.

"I took care of her, 24 hours a day," he said. "That's what you do when you're married."

He looks glum for a moment, then brightens. "Now I'm ready to start living again.

Low and McGregor met their destinies at Periscope, the Church of the Bayou's club for single seniors. "I heard that his wife had died, poor lady," Low recalled. "So, in my capacity as president of Periscope, I called and invited him to our weekly Lunch Bunch."

Early meetings between the two were pleasant but very quiet.

"Colin can be shy," Low said, "but I noticed he was always sitting next to me. After a few weeks, he asked if he could pay for my meal.

"Couple of weeks later, he suddenly said: "Can't I ever see you except at Periscope?' So we started, well . . . dating. No movies or dances, but church events, and we'd visit friends together, and relatives."

Since McGregor's relatives were back in Scotland, and his best friend in these parts (he had been best man at McGregor's first wedding, 64 years ago) was now 91 and not up to much socializing, the friends and relatives the couple visited were always Low's.

Her grandsons, David and his brother Daniel Boon, thought McGregor looked overwhelmed and yet pleased at a small sampling, a dozen or so, of local relatives.

"Colin and his first wife hadn't gone in for big, noisy family parties," David, 31, said. "She had been shy, had done a good job with her children, took an interest in her grandchildren, but never went out to work, never learned to drive. Colin seemed attracted to us from the first. He appreciated the liveliness."

Soon McGregor began proposing. Low put him off for a few days, then said yes. The family watched the romance flower. "They were affectionate; they were huggy," David Boon said.

"She was the one for me," McGregor said. "I was determined to marry her -- I pushed for it. She put a sparkle in my life.

He took Low to Service Merchandise to buy the ring.

"She headed to the cheaper-priced stuff," McGregor recalls. "I said, "No, these rings over here look a lot nicer.' We bought the one she liked best."

"It cost $4,000," said David Boon. "And a month before the wedding, he bought her a brand-new Nissan 2000.

"I put it in Elaine's name," McGregor said. "In case something happens to me, she'll have that to show for the experience."

Age looms, especially for an octogenarian in love. "I thought the least I should do was come to her in good health. So I got a physical, X-rays, blood tests and all.

"And do you know what the doctor told me? "Go ahead and marry her,' he said. "You"ve got the body of a 76-year-old man.' "

McGregor's smile turns proud, proving that if you look hard enough, you can find good news no matter what the circumstances.

A week before the marriage, an inquisitive outsider asked the Boon brothers whether they had assured themselves of McGregor's intentions.

"I would guess they haven't done anything much so far," David Boon said. "But I'm betting they'll get around to it later."

Beginnings and endings and beginnings

Elaine Low and her first husband raised their four children and then, in early middle age, put in nine years as Mormon missionaries in Samoa, the Cook Islands, Korea and elsewhere.

"Loved the people -- I had such good times with them," Low recalled. "Four of us would sit on the ground around some fabric we were working on, and we'd laugh and tell stories."

But the missions grew less pleasant, and so did the marriage. Soon there were signs that Low's help mate was losing his sense of identity:

"The day I knew he was not himself anymore was when he asked why I didn't walk five paces behind him, like an Asian woman would. I gave him his answer. "In a pig's eye,' I said."

Grandson David takes up the story: "My grandfather was about 54 years old when Grandma found out he had a Philippine concubine, 18 years old, and wanted to bring her back to the States."

The marriage, clearly, was over.

Low's second marriage was in its third decade when the Boon boys noticed their grandmother was not her peppy self. Her second husband, they decided, was abusing her, verbally at least, perhaps physically, too. The two grandsons descended upon their step-grandpa, got him into therapy. Finally, they divorced.

[Times photo: Cherie Diez]

Past 75, Low plunged into waves of activity. Needing a paying job, she works five days a week, four hours a day, at Neighborly Senior Services, and babysits professionally. She also volunteers for half a dozen worthy causes.

McGregor's worthy cause was his wife. They came to Florida some 20 years ago, after McGregor retired as chief purchasing officer for the state of Michigan. As such he regularly briefed five Michigan governors and their cabinets.

He is apparently one of those shy-seeming men who speak right up when dealing with important matters such as their new lady friends, their jobs, their golf games.

A couple of years ago, officials at the country club where he played golf decreed that players no longer would be permitted to walk the course. From then on, all golfers would be required to rent carts from management.

Some club members complained the change in policy was a management ploy to make extra money off golfers. One muttered against "people who try to tell a Scotsman how to play his golf."

In the end, McGregor quit both club and game.

A dream relationship

The wedding went off happily. Afterward, at the reception in the church, the families mixed pleasantly. McGregor progeny came in from Michigan and said they were "pleased, because he is so pleased."

The bride and groom were at the main table, Low laughing, hugging, knowing everyone. McGregor looked calmly pleased.

"We're a good match," he said. "She's outgoing, and I'm not."

"But can she cook?" someone asked.

"Sure she can cook," McGregor said, "and so can I. I can clean, too. In fact, I can't sit still and watch somebody else working. I have to jump in and help."

"Dream man," said one of the great-granddaughters.

Side by side, they sat there, husband and wife, like all other newlyweds and none of them.

They had a look of their own: living in the late autumn of their lives, in the present, unconcerned whether winter ever comes.

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