Couple Find Each Other Through eHarmony

As I approached a group of people at Hammel Woods Dog Park Monday evening, I noticed what I was sure were two newlyweds. It was the way he held her shoulders to steady her as several over-zealous dogs jostled about. I just had a feeling they weren’t old marrieds. 

“Anyone from Channahon or Minooka?” I asked, same as I had since Saturday, now desperate to write a column already overdue. 

“We are,” said the attractive lady. “Hey, don’t I know you?” asked the silver-haired gentleman. I gave my name and he said “you wrote about my mother, and after you did, TV came out to do a story and then the Tribune. I’m Lex Hahn.” 

I could actually remember a few details of that story, which is pretty good for me, as it happened a while back. His mom found great happiness in a second marriage at what back then I thought was an advanced age. And yes, this couple at the dog park married just two years ago and wouldn’t mind an interview. 

“You did a story about my pug meet-up group,” Claire said and that I remembered more clearly although I had done that interview by phone and not met her. Wow, the coincidences were starting to pile up. 

“How did you meet?” I asked as we settled down after I had snapped a few pictures of their pug and Brussels griffon on their laps.  

They looked at each other and smiled. “eHarmony,” they said. 

“Wow, that’s great! I’m on eHarmony,” I said and began to hope again I might meet “the right man” online. As amazing as this was to me, the story got even better. 

Claire Hahn had been married for 23 years and was a widow for 5 ½ years before her mother gave her money for an eHarmony subscription for Christmas and said “your husband is dead but you’re not.”  She looked for about a week and didn’t contact anyone. She didn’t even post her photo. And then she saw Lex’ profile. She instantly knew he was the one. 

Lex Hahn, who had never married, described himself at that point in time as “a serial dater. Not marriage material.” He had worked throughout the world as a consultant much of his adult life in exciting places like Turkey and Saudi Arabia. He was actually on more than one dating Internet site and had met a great many ladies, a few who actually resembled their online photo and several who did not. 

“We fell in love over the phone,” he said about Claire. 

Claire, a dog owner since age 5, said she had "asked" her late husband and late father to point her to the right man. Injured severely when a semi rear-ended her car in 1994 and again in 2000, she has titanium in places where most people have bone. “It changed my world,” she said simply. She was a registered nurse and a certified drug and alcohol counselor. She had a cat, two dogs and 3 exotic birds. 

Lex was not a pet owner. But a great many things were to change in his life. 

“We talked five nights a week on the phone,” she said, “sometimes for three or four hours.” Five weeks after that first phone call, Claire agreed to meet him at a restaurant. Her girlfriend drove her, just in case he wasn’t really what he said he was.

“Hey, I hadn’t dated in 30 years,” she said. 

They soon discovered that his uncle worked with her dad at the EJ&E. “And his dad did electrical work on my parents’ house,” she said. 

They got married a year and a half later after sorting through his commitment phobias.

“I asked his mother to help mend his heart,” she said.

Also, “I had to pass the pet test,” he commented with a laugh. Claire had only one cat when they married and Lex said he tried to institute a “no more pets policy.” But when they came back from their honeymoon in Istanbul, a friend had a kitten she knew she had to have to keep her cat, now age 13, company. 

The first cat, Sox, who is a “tuxedo” cat with white paws, was thrown from a speeding car by a bunch of teenagers. Sox was only four weeks old, and a kind woman saw this atrocity and gathered up the 8-ounce refugee and took it to TLC Shelter in Homer Glen. There, Claire found him. 

She knew Sox was lonely and depressed after she had had to give his companion cat away due to her allergic reaction. Sox and the new kitten, also a Tuxedo, didn’t get along at first. Now Sox thinks the since-grown cat is her baby. 

Lex lived in Joliet but moved into Claire’s house.

“My house didn’t have room for three birds, two cats and two dogs,” he said with a grin. 

But it’s obvious he was won over.

“The people who come here,” he said, gesturing around the park, “aren’t dog owners. They’re dog enthusiasts.”

Same could be said for them. 

Both their dogs have special needs. Leticia, the pug, had serious failure to thrive problems.

“Two vets said she should be put down,” said Claire. “The third, Dr. Skinner, of Wilmington, said he could save her.” 

She’s had several operations for things like leg abnormalities and breathing problems but is now a healthy 5 years old. 

Frodo, from a puppy mill, had languished for six months in a local pet shop that was going to return her to the breeder.

“I got her for a bargain basement price,” said Claire, but I get the feeling she’s been paying ever since.  

We lingered as the sun set because we had a hard time giving each other up. I could have talked to them all night. They gave me such wonderful tales and hope for romance at my advanced age.  Was this a chance meeting, we asked each other as Claire and I reached in for a hug. No, some things are met to be. 

     Jan Larsen is an outreach coordinator at Joliet Job Corps and proud escort of Frosty the Wonder Dog and pin cushion to two Siamese cats. She can be reached at janettellarsen@aol.com