After a 20-year relationship, a local couple is finally looking to tie the knot so they can properly enjoy the rest of their lives together in a Columbia nursing home.

Jean Isenhart and Elmo Donoho currently reside at BRIA of Columbia, where they’ve already been enjoying one another’s company amid the facility’s other residents.

While the couple recently met with the Republic-Times, it was primarily Jean’s daughter Lizz who spoke about each of them and their relationship.

Jean grew up in East St. Louis, working on the SS Admiral and later serving in human resources for St. Clair Associated Vocational Enterprises. She was also on the board for Little Knights and St. Teresa’s in Belleville.

Donoho was born and raised in the small village of Iuka in Marion County, attending Illinois State University and serving as a professor at Roosevelt University before becoming a teacher in the St. Louis area.

Lizz spoke a bit about their interests, with Donoho seemingly having a bit of a green thumb.

“He somewhat has the farmer DNA in him because he really loved planting and growing things,” Lizz said. “He had his own compost maker, and he saved compost and would make compost, and he had raised bed gardens.”

Jean’s hobbies were geared more toward family traditions, though she did have a love of crafts.

“She was good at sewing, she did needle-points, she did those things, but her favorite thing was frying chicken on Sundays for her grandkids and kids,” Lizz said. “That was her favorite thing, making dumplings and fried chicken.”

As Lizz described, the two actually got to know each other through a personal ad a little over 20 years ago.

Him living in the Soulard neighborhood of St. Louis and she living in Swansea, Lizz said he would often stop by, taking the metro and riding his bike in his 70s.

They have been plenty close in the years since, but their relationship deepened exceptionally as age and health led them both to Columbia’s BRIA senior living community.

There, they’ve continued to keep busy together, enjoying one another’s company as well as Lizz’s regular visits with tea or coffee throughout the week.

“He reads the calendar and highlights all the things that would be good for her, and then he tells me about it, and I love that,” Lizz said. “She doesn’t miss Communion, she doesn’t miss Mass, she doesn’t miss getting her nails done or going to bingo. And the biggest one: live music. She loves music.”

With their relationship stretching beyond two decades and Donoho and Jean now standing at 92 and 86 years old, respectively, the idea of marriage came up following a bit of a scare.

According to Lizz, Jean was taken to the hospital relatively recently, though she wasn’t informed of her mother’s whereabouts until she had been gone for two days.

As Lizz didn’t know where Jean was, neither did Donoho, who, per Lizz, was distraught at the idea she had broken up with him only to be immensely relieved upon her return to BRIA.

“He was really upset,” Lizz said. “He was so upset, he almost was in tears when I brought her back in from the hospital a few days after that.”

Donoho popped the question soon after, and the couple’s wedding is currently planned for Oct. 20 in the nursing home’s chapel.

Nicolas Gonzales, Jean’s grandson, will be giving her away while her longtime friend Doris Albert will serve as maid of honor and Donoho’s friend Raymond Neff will act as best man.

The couple are naturally looking forward to this milestone in their relationship, though as Lizz said, they’re practically already married.

“She thinks they’re already married almost 24/7, and when I do bring up that she’s getting married, she’s excited and happy,” Isenhart said. “Now, they would have gotten married 20 years ago or 10 years ago, but they didn’t. It wasn’t until, I think, life put them together in the nursing home.”