Woman finds love defies age, circumstance

   Ada Hendrickson, 73, has outlived two husbands.
   Her first husband died in 1974 of heart surgery complications. Her second died in 1992 of pancreatic cancer.
   But as fate would have it, Cupid had yet another arrow to sling her way.
   This one would bring her face-to-face with Von Hendrickson, whom she met in 1946 and corresponded with for a year and a half before they lost touch.
   On Friday, two years after finding each other again, the two became Mr. and Mrs. Von Hendrickson.
   "This is really bittersweet because Von has (inoperable lung) cancer," said Ada Hendrickson's son, Larry Rapier, who together with his other two siblings and their spouses attended their mother's wedding.
   "At first I was a little concerned because I didn't want my mother to have to go through this again. But they love each other and when love is involved you do whatever you have to do."
   Rapier's mother first met Hendrickson when she was only 19. He had come to Corpus Christi, headed for the YMCA for a night's stay before reporting to Naval Air Station Corpus Christi. Two of Ada Hendrickson's girlfriends spotted him and asked him if he liked to dance.
   "He said yes and they told him, 'Well, we know a girl who really can dance. Would you like to meet her?' " Ada Hendrickson recalled of her friends' matchmaking. "Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that they'd do that."
   That evening, led by the girls' impromptu query, Von Hendrickson came knocking on Ada's door and the two went out on a dancing date.
   They continued seeing each other until the Navy transferred him to Norfolk, Va., a month later. Soon after, Hendrickson was on board a Navy ship bound for Italy.
  
   Separate lives
   Over the years, both married other people and had children. When they found each other again - by then their spouses had died - it seemed like destiny, said 84-year-old Von Hendrickson.
   "The first time I talked to her on the phone I had to sit down in a chair and think back over all those years," he said. "It was meant to be."
   Cupid may have had the arrow, but it was Ada Hendrickson's daughter, Cathy Rapier, who guided its direction.
   After hearing her widowed mother speak of a young man she'd met all those decades ago, Rapier did some sleuthing on the Internet and found her mother's long-ago suitor living in Las Vegas.
   "When we talked, it felt like we'd never been apart," Ada Hendrickson said. "He hadn't changed much. Except we got real old.
   "He said he never did forget me and I never did either. Of course, we fell in love and married other people. But we always had a thought in our minds about each other."
  
   'Now was the time'
   Ada and Von Hendrickson visited each other that first year and in May, he moved to Corpus Christi. Both began talking about marriage but were forced to put their plans on hold when Von Hendrickson learned he had throat cancer. When it went into remission after radiation treatments, wedding plans resumed.
   But once again life threw them a curve ball. Von Hendrickson's cancer reappeared, this time in his lungs.
   "We'd talked and talked about marrying that we finally decided that if we were ever going to do it, now was the time," Ada Hendrickson said. "We'll make the most of the good quality time we have together."
   And that is something Larry Rapier has come to understand.
   "People think that just because you're older you don't feel love anymore," he said. "But you fall in love at 60 just the way you do at 16. Love . . . it feels the same and it means the same, no matter what age."