50 years later, New Britain High School classmates become soulmates

It was 1962. He was too shy to ask her out but she thought he was funny and wished he would. They parted ways and lived two separate lives for the next five decades50 years.

But when former classmates Stanley Senk, 70, and Jackie Ginelewicz, 71, met again last October at their 50th New Britain High School Reunion, a teenage dream came true.

After growing up in New Britain, Jackie moved to Newington with her late husband, Gerald Ginelewicz, a Newington pPolice oOfficer who passed away eight years ago.

She was living in Wethersfield last October when a friend urged her to attend the NBHS reunion.

“You might meet somebody,” she said.

Jackie shrugged off the suggestion — but went anyway.

“I said, are you crazy?,” she remembers. “I never expected to be married again.”

Stanley, an outgoing class clown-type, was buzzing around taking photographs of each table at the Indian Hill Country Club where the event was held, when he caught sight of his high school crush.

“I sat next to him in a class called ‘Pproblems of Ddemocracy’ — a civics class. He used to talk to me in the hallways; we always kind of liked each other,” remembers Jackie, who accepted his invitation to dance that night not expecting to be swept off her feet in more ways than one.

The fact that he was living in Maryland and she was back in Connecticut would have posed an obstacle for any other couple, but not them.

A sSupervisor with U.S. Airways, Stanley flew up one morning soon after the reunion just to takeand took Jackie out for brunch.

“It was like she was 16 all over again,” gushes Colleen Kornichuk, a close friend. “She was giggling constantly and so happy she could cry.”

The pair is now in the process of moving Jackie’s things to Maryland. They will be married Friday, July 26July 26July 26 at St. Mary Parish in Newington.

“I had absolutely no intention of ever getting married again after being married before for 42-and-a-half years,” says Stanley, whose first wife passed away two-and-a-half years ago.

“The more time I spent with Jackie the more I realized that the good Lord watches over me. Whatever door closes for me he’s always opened another one,.” he says.

He’s planning on retiring in a few years, after which the couple will have the chance to travel more together — a passion of theirs. They’ve already been to Florida and Tennessee and will honeymoon in Paris after the wedding.

“He wants to go to the Grand Canyon next year,” adds Jackie.

A tone of delight can be sensed in her voice when she cautions about her fiancé’s sense of humor.

“We have a lot of fun together — we laugh a lot.”

“She’s one hot chick,” says Stanley, before taking on a more serious tone. “She’s fun to be with. She’s my life.”

Erica Schmitt can be reached at (860) 225-4601, ext. 210, or eschmitt@newbritainherald.com.

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