‘Happy day:’ Sask. couple in their 80’s find love and marry

A Saskatoon couple is proving it’s never too late to fall in love.

Jim Davidson and Mina Gronzell were both in their 80s when they met at the Preston Park retirement home by Market Mall.

“I met Mina and we fell in love. She loved me and I loved her, that’s all there is to it,” Jim said.

Jim, 89, had just moved in when he decided to help decorate for the All Seniors Care Winter Games.

“Mina saw me fumbling around with scissors and pictures and glue and tape and so she said, ‘Can I help?’ And I said, ‘Yeah I guess so I need somebody to help me,’” Davidson said.

Mina said it was Jim’s personality that drew her to him.

“He’s one of the nicest people you would want to meet,” she said.

A year later – June 24, 2017 – the couple was married in an outdoor ceremony at Elk Ridge in Waskesiu.

“I didn’t realize really that I was really serious about this guy and then one day it just hit me that, ‘Gee, I might be serious about this Jim.’ So it was a very happy day for both of us,” Mina said.

Jim and Mina were both married previously at a young age. They explained how losing a partner leaves behind a void of loneliness.

“There’s an emptiness there that I think I feel has righted itself now,” she said.

“There’s a maturity there and an understanding maybe that isn’t there when we were younger.”

On July 11, the two moved into Jim’s one-bedroom apartment. He joked that moving in together was their honeymoon.

The couple is now waiting for a two-bedroom east facing suite to open up.

“Not that we want to sleep separate, like that isn’t the idea. I got too much stuff to put into one suite and so does Mina,” Jim said.

The couple is well known in the community for welcoming new residents and taking part in activities such as dancing.