Worth the Wait

Stephen Kardon and Ellen Sulkin during their Experiment in 1960.

Though it was love at first sight, it took 49 years for Ellen Sulkin and Stephen Kardon to tie the knot.

The two first met in 1960 while Experimenters in France. At the time, Sulkin was engaged to another man back home, but this obstacle did not stop Kardon from stealing a kiss one night as the two traveled by overnight train to Paris.

Throughout the ensuing months in France, the pair’s romance blossomed on long bike trips through the French countryside. Yet, when the trip ended they parted ways and did not speak to each other for nearly five decades.

“I was pretty sad when she left, but I had to put her out of my mind,” Kardon told the New York Times in 2009.

Though the young couple drifted apart, Sulkin stayed in close contact with her French host sister, Maite Bonte. “Maite and I were like sisters,” Sulkin told World Learning in 2007. “We had a wonderful way of communicating and were alike in so many ways.”

Over the years Sulkin and Bonte continued to visit each other. Through multiple visits, their children, and eventually their grandchildren, became friends despite living on different continents.

In 2007 World Learning interviewed Sulkin about her relationship with Bonte. Our organization also provided Sulkin with contact information for her former group members. Though Sulkin and Kardon reconnected briefly at the time, Sulkin was grieving over the passing of her partner and Kardon was married with three children. Sulkin assumed the spark was gone.

However, a few years later Kardon reached out to her. His wife of 39 years had passed away and he sought advice from Sulkin, who told him to take time to grieve for his late wife.

They kept in touch and a relationship soon blossomed again.  “When we reconnected, I realized that the feelings we once had for each other were still all there. It had been suppressed rather than eradicated,” Kardon told the New York Times. “After all those years, it was still percolating.”

In 2009 they finally tied the knot, 49 years after their adventure in France with the Experiment.

Read the New York Times article about the couple, or read a 2007 interview with Sulkin on our website.

Stephen and Ellen's Experiment group in France, 1960.