A couple from Colorado shares their romance reminiscent of ‘The Notebook’
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) - There’s no question everyone wants a love that lasts forever. At 102 years old, Roy Stoller embodies that kind of commitment. His love for his late wife Lila defies the test of time.
“I don’t deserve one quite that beautiful and lovely,” Roy told KRDO13’s Julia Donovan during a visit to his Lake George home.
Roy Stoller still remembers the moment he met his wife Lila at a teacher's conference in Iowa.
“I was so taken by her that on the way home, I composed a little ode to her,” Roy recalled.
We got a look at that very ode.
“I met a girl today. She walked into my life like the clean, sweet breeze of a balmy day of spring,” the ode reads. It was the first of many love poems between the couple.
Roy would like to say they lived happily ever after from that point on… but not quite.
After dozens of letters back and forth, while he was an Airman in World War II, Roy told us he received one that put him in the friend zone. Underlined. Period.
That’s until he showed up at Lila’s church with another woman on his arm. The whole family, including his grandson Caleb, knows what happened next. A change of heart by Lila.
“It really kind of tore her up and she wrote a letter back to him,” Caleb Stoller explained.
Caleb read us part of the letter that altered their lives forever.
“I’m bewildered at my own state of emotions and I need to talk with you. Roy, please come home,” he read. “I wouldn’t be here if he didn’t,” the grandson joked.
A move to Colorado, five kids, and quite a few grandchildren later – Roy and Lila’s marriage far surpassed their penpal friendship.
Lila developed early-onset Alzheimer’s disease in her 50s, but Roy never left her side – staying positive and visiting her every day.
“I would do for her whatever I could,” he said.
It’s kind of like that Nicholas Sparks story, The Notebook. Roy actually turned their hundreds of letters and poems into a book and even got it published. His biggest piece of advice for a storybook romance is as simple as this:
“Love takes a lot of respect if you’re going to make it work,” Roy explained. “I don’t think we had an unkind word for each other, ever.”
Lila passed away in 2016, but the love story lives on through Roy’s unwavering devotion, the pages of his book, and their family.
“I only want that kind of love… I’m going to keep looking until I find that kind of love,” Caleb told us. “It’s the only way to go.”
You can buy Roy’s book, Poems of Long Ago, on the Barnes and Noble website or on Amazon.
