It is quite recent. When I arrived in Alaska in 1990, I ended up renting an old trailer on Al's property. Al was Albert Slemsek, possibly the only Slovakian ever in this Bush area. Al had been married to a stunning Redhead, Lorraine, in his early years. Lorraine, a teacher and very independent decided she didn't like living in this exceptionally wild, cold country so she and Al parted ways.
Al, subsequently married his bookkeeper at his Studebaker business. They lived a happy life but after she died, both being already elderly, Al was very lonely - although he dated every single woman in the area, always with one of his Roses and some homemade wine.
One day he came over to talk to me about his first wife, Lorraine, that he hadn't seen in some 40+ years. He told me that 'he had only 2 important women in his life and they were both dead, but he wasn't really sure about the first one. He had heard, through friends, that she may still be alive in Los Angeles - and off he went.
Al was now almost 80 and not been out of rural Alaska in a very long time. We tried to disuade him but no luck. Lo and behold, a month or so later, back he comes with his sweetheart and they both had the same story.
All found Lorraine in a high scale nursing home and they immediately recognized each other some 40+ years later. He said to her" Honey, isn't it time you came home?". She thought a minute and replied yes!.
They lived together for several more years, in happpiness, in a little trailer, next door, in rural Alaska.
P.S. In doing her genealogy, it turned out that in this strange, far away place, she had been my cousin from the family in Maine. I now live in seriously nowhere, rural Alaska on land that my Maine cousin once owned._