Harold Terens met Jeanne Swerlin in 2021
Caen, France:
Centenary World War II veteran Harold Terens will marry his 96-year-old fiancée in the French town of Carentan-les-Marais on Saturday, just days after he was honored on the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings that took place. a few kilometers away.
Terens’ wedding to Jeanne Swerlin on Saturday will be followed by a celebration “with his loved ones, in a small group,” said Sarah Pasquier, the town hall’s representative for D-Day commemorations.
“We are very honored that Mr Terens chose to get married here in Carentan, where the meeting of the Allied troops of the landings on the beaches of Utah and Omaha took place in June 1944,” Mayor Jean-Pierre Lhonneur told AFP .
“We will of course offer him champagne, but also a gift to thank him for his participation in the liberation of France.”
After the ceremony, “depending on his possible fatigue”, Pasquier says Terens can join a parade of veterans in the center of Carentan during the afternoon.
There will also be a liberation ball held in the evening as part of the D-Day commemorations, she said, with attendees “invited to dress in a 1940s theme and welcome soldiers from the nearby US base “.
“But Mr. Terens and his wife may be too tired to participate,” she added.
Terens, who lives with Swerlin in Boca Raton, Florida, received the French Legion of Honor from President Emmanuel Macron in 2019.
After the war, Terens married his first wife, Thelma, with whom he spent seventy years and raised three children until her death in 2018.
In 2021, a friend introduced him to Swerlin, a charismatic woman who was also a widow, and the two have been virtually inseparable ever since.
“She lights up my life, she makes everything beautiful,” Terens told AFP in an interview in Florida last month. “She makes life worth living.”
In the same interview, Swerlin said her fiancé was “an incredible guy.” “He’s handsome, and he’s a good kisser.”
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