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‘We feel the Lord had a hand in us meeting,’ Bill Tjoelker said
from Encore May 2023
By Bill Helm Editor
LYNDEN — Lois and Bill Tjoelker were married for more than 50 years –each to someone else.
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In late-2021, each was widowed. Executive director and manager of the Lynden Community/Senior Center, Jennifer Lautenbach met Lois and Bill at the center’s Valentine’s celebration this year in February. The same place Lois and Bill first met on Cinco de Mayo a year ago.
“They both talked about how lonely it was after their spouses passed after being married so many years and how the stars aligned for them to meet at the center that day,” Lautenbach said. “Bill and Lois Tjoelker were strangers, although their families knew each other.”
His second time at the center, Bill saw an extra seat at a table and sat down with Lois and her sister. Although their homes were less than two miles from each other, Lois and Bill had never met. Lynden residents the both of them,
Lois and Bill’s daughters were friends. Their grandsons also grew up together, did fishing, hunting, rode motorcycles.
“They have known each other for a long time,” Lois said. “That made it easier, too, for both families to accept us.”
Lois and Bill said they weren’t looking to get married when they met. Each was looking for companionship, they said.
“We were so compatible,” Lois said. By the time that Cinco de Mayo lunch was finished, Lois and Bill had exchanged telephone numbers. A week after, they went out on their first date.
One night in Birch Bay after dinner, a few months after they’d met, Bill and Lois took a walk on the beach. There, on the beach, Bill got down onto one knee and proposed to Lois.
Lois (Green) and Bill Tjoelker were married on Sept. 17, 2022.
“We feel the Lord had a hand in us meeting,” Bill said.
-- Contact Bill Helm at bill@lyndentribune.com.
Each widowed in late2021 after five-plus decades married, Lois and Bill Tjoelker met on Cinco de Mayo 2022 and married a little more than four months later. “We feel the Lord had a hand in us meeting,” Bill said. (Bill Helm/Lynden Tribune)
