Mississippian KT Robbins was a 24 year-old young man when he deployed to Europe in mid-1944.
He was there for the allied invasion….D Day….. and France was in the process of being liberated from Nazi subjugation.
He was in a company of bakers for the army, and he was sent to Briey, a town in northeastern France, where he was to spend four months before being sent ever east.
In his first week there, he was unloading mostly-empty 5-gallon buckets of lard from a truck, when he was approached by 18 year old Jeannine Ganaye and her two young siblings.
Speaking from the other side of the fence, she asked KT if they could have the containers.
“I asked them what they wanted them for, and they told me they planned to heat them up and get the last bits of lard out of them.
I said ‘Great you can have em all.’”
She started returning every day, and their relationship grew.
He asked a mate about the local woman that cleaned and washed his clothes, so he could get her to clean his as well. His mate introduced them...and within minutes he discovered that it was Jeannine’s mother.
The rest is what you’ve seen in many a romantic movie.
With the backdrop of the weariness and exhilaration, fear and excitement....of brutality and carnage.... they found solace in each other’s arms.
Not speaking each others language didn’t hinder them from understanding each other, and they talking for hours about their dreams.
“In a courtship”, is how KT puts it.
It was the first time for both of them.
He was given 24 hours to rap things up, because he and his unit were being transferred to the Eastern front, close to the ever-changing line that the Germans were trying to hold on to.
He was allowed to leave the base one last time, for four hours.
Four sweet hours, they held each other and at times, wept.
She worried about his well-being.
Both believed and promised they would reconnect after the carnage.
KT promised that their separation was only temporary and that he’d see her again.
"When he left in the truck I cried, of course, I was very sad. I wish, after the war, he hadn't returned to America."
She put on a brave face, and he took picture of her with a camera that he borrowed from his Sergeant.
Whilst on the Front, he was wounded and was sent state-side. The war was nearly over and he wasn’t going to be redeployed to Europe.
Remember, this was at a time that communicating with someone overseas...especially if you were a poor Mississippi boy….wasn’t easy.
And so it goes….
For five years, Jeannine waited, spurning suitors.
She took English classes so she could converse with the man she loved.
But he never returned.
So she got married, and had five children.
Her marriage lasted 55 years. Until her husband passed.
And she thought about her first love.
"I've always thought of him, thinking maybe he'll come. I wish he had come back."
KT went to Ole Miss, opened a hardware store and married his wife Lillian, and they were married for 70 years. Until Lillian passed in 2015.
“We had a good life together. We were married 70 years, but this other thing was still in my heart."
On why he never tried to find her, "You know, when you get married, after that you can't do it anymore.''
He went to the attic, and found the picture.
And put it in his jacket pocket, near his heart.
Every day.
An organization called Forever Young Veterans offered to send him back to France to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings.
And in the lead-up to his trip, KT was interviewed by France 2, a French television station and media company.
After KT told them about Jeannine, and especially after he took out her picture, ever present in his breast pocket, they knew that they were going to do everything they could to find her...if she was still alive.
It didn’t take long.
Within a day, they found her.
Less than 40 miles from the location that she posed for the picture 75 years before.
After KT arrived in France and got settled in, they got on a train in the guise of going sightseeing.
And then they told him that in thirty minutes, he would be able to relive his past...and that his future was open.
This is France, after all.
And so… the reunion with KT, now 97.... and Jeannine, now 92.
Him...“I always loved you. You never got out of my heart.”
Her...”I love you. See you soon.”
When they were embracing, i saw the years of age literally disappear.
Love does that.
KT left to attend the ceremonies in Normandy, and met with the few comrades still left to remember.
He returned to America.
Now?
He’s sprucing up his home.
Because in February, Jeannine and two of her children are coming-in for a visit to Olive Branch, Mississippi.
There’s a lot of things to talk about and discuss.
Like love…
...and the future.
It ain’t over 'til it’s over, friends.
Just because….