By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
November 21, 1999
Jean and Charles Halevi met in 1981. She was a local reporter working on a story. He was the public relations representative helping her get the information she needed for her piece.
Charles asked Jean out. She said, “No.”
“I had a hard and fast rule that I never dated sources or anyone in the media who I was working with,” says Charles, who dabbles in some free-lance writing. “The one time in my life that I made an exception, she turned me down.”
Jean says, “There was no way I could go out with him. We were working on a story together, and it would’ve been inappropriate. The timing just wasn’t right.”
A few months went by. Charles, who was divorced, was tiring of the single life.
“I had been to all the bars and all the singles’ dances,” he says. “And boy, was I sick of it. So I placed an ad in a newspaper that said, `Wife wanted.’ Singles ads are pretty common these days, but back then, they were unheard of.”
Then the holiday season rolled around. When he got back from vacation, he found a card waiting for him at his office. It wasn’t from a woman replying to the ad. Rather, it was from Jean – who, by the way, never saw the ad.
“She essentially sent me a very carefully chosen New Year’s card,” Charles remembers. “The essence of the message was, `Try your luck again.’ I called her right away, and the rest, as they say, is history.”
Asked about her change of heart, Jean laughs.
“He was a nice guy,” she says. “It wasn’t like I was dying to be married or even dating anyone at the time. But it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”
By early 1982, they became a couple. Besides possessing the same sense of wry humor, they shared a common hobby: collecting comic books.
“Actually, it’s not a bad idea for single women to go to comic book conventions,” Jean says, laughing. “There are always more men than women there.”
On Nov. 23, 1983, Jean and Charles became husband and wife.
“We’ll be celebrating our 16th anniversary (Tuesday),” Jean says. “I’d be lying if I said that everything has been smooth sailing. It hasn’t. There are times when you just want to quit, but we hung in there. It’s definitely been worth it.”
The baby boomers currently reside in the north suburbs with their children Ethan, 14, and Ariella, 3 1/2. Ethan has started up his own comic book collection. As for Ariella?
“She enjoys tearing them apart,” Jean says. “That’s more fun for her.”
