A WWII romance rekindled

A starving Polish jeweler liberated from a Nazi concentration camp by soldiers from Gen. George Patton's Third Army asked Pvt. Dave Kershaw whether he would like him to make duplicate "pre-engagement" rings from two U.S. silver dollars, one for himself and the other for his girlfriend in South Jersey.

Her name would be on one side of each ring, his on the other.

Kershaw, a native of Mount Ephraim who was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1944 and who survived the Battle of the Bulge, was thrilled by the jeweler's heartfelt gesture.

"I supplied the silver dollars and the jeweler finished the rings in two weeks," said Kershaw, who has lived most of his life in Barnsboro. "I was discharged in 1946, brought the rings home, and put them away in my safe deposit box. No one else knew about them."

Not even Jeanne Walker, the Haddon Heights girl he had met and dated during summer 1943, when he was a lifeguard at the Audubon community pool.

And not for 65 years.

"Jeanne and I wrote to each other the entire two and a half years I was in the Army," Kershaw said. "But we were careful about getting engaged because of the war. It was a difficult time.

"When I came home, we dated the summer of 1946, picking up where we left off. But eventually, our paths separated. It was a mutual decision. We just weren't ready to make a commitment," he said. They decided to get on with their lives, and the rings stayed in a safe place.

Walker served three years in the government's wartime Nurse Cadet Program, went to nursing school, became a registered nurse, was married twice, and raised two sons, one of whom is now dead.

Kershaw earned an engineering degree from Drexel in 1950. He began dating Clara Wahl of Woodbury. They fell in love and were married on June 24, 1950, at Christ Episcopal Church in Woodbury.

They were together for 61 years before Clara's death in 2011 of complications from Alzheimer's disease. They had two sons, David Jr., a retired schoolteacher; and Dean, who runs the family business, Kershaw Instrumentation in Swedesboro. Dave Kershaw Sr. ran it for 50 years as president and CEO, including 20 when it was in Woodbury.

Kershaw didn't want to put his wife in a nursing home, so he employed a series of professionals to help her at home. But he considered it essential to hire a person who specialized in Alzheimer's patients and searched for one.

Then he learned through friends that his long-ago girlfriend, now Jeanne Barbaro, offered just that kind of service and was still in the area, widowed and living in Chesilhurst.

He got her phone number and nervously made the call after having had no contact with her for more than 60 years.

"We spent about 45 minutes on the phone that first day," he said. "She knew I was in the area, but not the circumstances of my life. She cried a lot as we talked. But she said she would help Clara, and she came to our house ready to work the next day.

"All those years, Clara had known about Jeanne being in my life. I wasn't trying to hide anything," Kershaw said.

"We became close friends," Barbaro said of her relationship with Clara Kershaw.

For the next three years, Barbaro helped Clara. They worked crossword puzzles to help occupy Clara's mind. Barbaro used her skills to try ways to elevate Clara from the darkness that is Alzheimer's.

"Jeanne was wonderful the way she cared for my wife," Kershaw said.

On a February day in 2011, while Barbaro was working, Kershaw told her at last about the rings and gave her the one that had been meant for her. She was flabbergasted.

After Clara Kershaw's death a year ago, Kershaw and Barbaro consoled each other over a loss they now shared. They had lunches and dinners together, went to movies, and recently took a Caribbean cruise.

When Kershaw popped the question on a cruise ship Barbaro cried again. And she said yes.

No wedding date is set, although Kershaw suggested with a chuckle it could be soon "because at our age . . .. " He's 86, she's 85. They are selling their houses and plan to buy another in the West Deptford area.

"We've had wonderful support from friends and our families," said Kershaw, who enjoys generally good health despite having had a triple heart bypass, a struggle with prostate cancer, and not-so-memorable World War II "walks" through France, Germany, and Belgium.

Said Barbaro, "It's unbelievable, marvelous, I can't believe it myself."

"This was meant to be. I believe that," Kershaw said.

And more than six decades after an emaciated Polish POW found a heartwarming way to thank one of his U.S. liberators, Barbaro at last has her ring.