BY BRITTNEE NAVE

STAR CORRESPONDENT

A Carter County couple were able to rekindle their romance after a 57-year separation.

Angela Jones and Joe Lewis first met in 1952 after a blind date. Jones was 14 at the time and Lewis was 18.

Lewis, who had been seeing a girl who passed away after a car accident, was set up with Jones by a friend named Bud. He and his friend drove to her house for him to see what she looked like.

“This girl came out on the street, blonde headed with a white blouse on, blue jeans rolled up, white bobby socks on and these penny loafers,” he said. “He said that’s her coming up the street and I said she looks like an angel to me. He said her name was Angie, and when she got there, oh man. Me and her sat and talked and I asked her for a date that night.”

He went home and got ready, picking her up in his dad’s 1936 Chevrolet, and took her out to eat.

All these years later he recalled their usual order of a hamburger and fries with a chocolate shake for her and strawberry shake for him.

The pair continued going to the movies and out to dinner at places like Dairy Queen, Dutch Maid, Blue Circle, a coffee shop and a Pig ’n Whistle almost every night.

One evening after the pair went to see Jones’ mother in the hospital and then went to the drive-in, they got into an argument that led to them breaking up.

Jones and Lewis both married other people in 1956. Jones went on to have three children with her husband, and worked at the Bemberg factory. Lewis adopted two with his wife, and worked as a rock truck driver. The pair did not see each other again until years later.

“My wife had a first cousin who lived on this street and we were up there a lot,” he said. “My wife asked her cousin who lived over there and named off names, and named Angie and her husband. I’d drive through here and circle this place two or three times trying to see her again.”

He finally saw her again when John Henson, a former sheriff, was running for another term and invited him to a pig roast. Although he saw her, he didn’t say anything to her as both were still married.

On New Years Eve in 2009, Lewis was at his wife’s funeral when Jones officially came back into his life. He recalled that she told him she had been through losing a spouse as her husband had passed five years earlier. After the funeral Lewis received a sympathy card from her with her number attached, and gave her a call. After asking if he drank or smoked and he said no, Jones invited him to her house for dinner.

The pair continued spending time together as friends having dinner until February of that year when Lewis spoke with his preacher about whether this was OK, who said it was perfectly fine.

Lewis and Jones have now been back together 10 years this month. Over the years, the pair have traveled together and are happy companions.

“We are very happy together and we are companions,” she said. “We just go to different places and did some traveling. We’re just happy together. He’s good to me, he takes care of me.”