LAKEPORT — Leighton and Bonna Alt first fell in love when they were in high school, but it wasn”t until nearly 60 years later, under a tree in Library Park Wednesday afternoon, that the couple finally joined their hands in marriage.
“It was earth-shaking to me,” Leighton, 76, said. “She”s made me the happiest man alive.”
“It seemed like a dream come true,” Bonna, 77, said.
The pair first met at Richmond High School in 1953. They dated, even went to the senior prom together, but went their separate ways soon after graduating in 1954.
“We just went our own ways afterward,” Leighton said. “I was a kid, that”s what I chalked it up to. I was a boy, and I wasn”t ready to be a man.”
The two led separate lives for almost half a century. They started their own families. He married once, she twice.
But that changed when Leighton was one of the people charged with contacting classmates during the lead-up to their 50th high school reunion.
He got hold of Bonna during the winter of 2003, and they soon “talked for hours every night.”
Leighton was a widower and Bonna was going through a divorce.
He lived in Long Beach at the time, but he drove up to Hidden Valley Lake to see Bonna every few weeks.
“When I came up here, I fell in love with Lake County,” he said.
Within several months, he bought a house in Hidden Valley Lake and the two moved in together in August 2003.
“Things happen fast. When you”re older, you can”t put off a lot of things,” Leighton said.
“And he was right; he did come back a man instead of a boy,” Bonna said.
The pair lived together unmarried for almost nine years, but about two weeks ago, Bonna — who is battling cancer and now lives in a nursing home in Clearlake after suffering a stroke in mid-July — brought up the subject.
“She said, ”Put up or shut up. Marry me,”” Leighton said. “And I said, ”I”ve been waiting for that.””
Bonna”s grandson, Garrett Simson, arrived from out of state Tuesday and helped get the ball rolling.
“He knew that we wanted to get married, so he talked to people and made the arrangements so it could happen,” Leighton said.
The ceremony was put together quickly.
Only a handful of family and friends could attend on short notice. Leighton”s neighbor, a minister, married them.
“I was glad,” Simson said of seeing his grandmother get married in Lakeport Wednesday. “I was really happy we were able to make her wish come true.”
Bonna Preston, who was named for her grandmother, watched the ceremony with her husband and two daughters. “To see them, it”s a true love story,” she said.
Jeremy Walsh is a staff reporter for Lake County Publishing. Reach him at 263-5636, ext. 37 or jwalsh@record-bee.com. Follow him on Twitter, @JeremyDWalsh.
