Daughter Watched Her Dad, 98, Find Love Again After His Wife’s Death. Now He’s a Newlywed: ‘Sweetest Thing’

• Jo Cartwright, 96, and Bernard Snyder, 98, found love with each other following the deaths of their longtime spouses
• “No one is more surprised than myself!” Cartwright tells PEOPLE after the couple’s Nov. 1 wedding
• “They knocked it out of the park at the wedding,” adds Snyder’s daughter Donna, who says the happy couple wouldn’t even “sit down at the reception”

After her husband of 68 years died, Jo Cartwright never considered remarrying. She moved into a retirement community, she played bridge, crafted, went to coffees and dinners with her female friends. “Women keep busy,” she says. “I was perfectly happy.”

But earlier this year she fell in love with 98-year-old Bernard Snyder, and the two wed November 1.

“No one is more surprised than myself!” Cartwright, 96, tells PEOPLE. “It’s wonderful to know that you can love again.”

Cartwright’s husband died in 2014, and a few years later, she moved into Austin’s Westminster Retirement Community in 2017.

There, she recognized Snyder and his wife of over 70 years, Hermyne. The couple, who had recently moved into the retirement community themselves, had previously lived a few doors down from Cartwright’s son.   

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“I was so impressed with how gentle and kind he was with his wife,” Cartwright remembers. “I thought he was such a dear person, but never dreamed that there would be anything between us, ever.”

Then in July 2023, Hermyne died at 92 after suffering congestive heart failure and dementia.

“My mother was an absolute spitfire. She cussed like a sailor. She was one of the funniest people you would ever meet. She was harsh, she was in your face, and everybody loved her,” daughter Donna Snyder, 73, tells PEOPLE.

Throughout their 73-year marriage, Donna, a retired attorney, says that her father was absolutely “devoted” to his wife — so much so that when she died, she and her siblings wondered if he could even “survive” it.

And initially, after his wife’s death, Snyder ate alone in his room, even though his children “worked really hard” to get him to invite people in. “He didn’t want to do it. He was just shy,” says Donna.

But eventually other residents started inviting him to dinner, and he took them up on the offer, which ended up paving the way for love.

Snyder says he noticed Cartwright dining with a group of her friends one night. “She was so adorable,” says Snyder, 98, who owned a chain of women’s clothing stores in Brownsville, McAllen and Austin, before working in commercial real estate and the stock market. “I was enamored.”

He invited her to his 98th birthday party on January 21 — and after that, the pair started eating dinner every night.

“She’s a delight to be around,” adds the WWII Navy veteran. “She’s just a very kind and loving human being.”

So he brought her flowers and ice cream -—and pulled out her chair and held doors for her.

“He was smitten with her,” adds his daughter, who says at one point she worried her dad might actually scare Cartwright off. “And then I thought, ‘Who am I to know how a 98-year-old man dates after losing his 73-year marriage? I don’t know what’s right,” she adds.

Donna says that her dad also kept checking in with her and her siblings to make sure they were okay.

“I kept saying, ‘No, no, no, no, no. There’s nothing more than I want you to be happy,’ ” she adds, pointing out that it also wasn’t like her father left their mother for another woman.

Cartwright — who, in addition to being a wife, mother and grandmother, once owned a gift shop with a good friend — said that during their entire courtship Snyder was nothing but “sweet and thoughtful.”

Then one day he brought up the idea of taking the next step.

“He said, ‘Why don’t we get married?’ And I said, ‘Well, I think you’re crazy,’ ” adds Cartwright. But he was so kind and so caring, and the more she got to know him, the more her “love for him grew.”

After a couple of months, she agreed to marry him.

In March, the couple shared the news with their family, which admittedly did come as a bit of a shock. But, once that wore off, the only thing to do was throw the best celebration ever — and that’s exactly what happened.

“They knocked it out of the park at the wedding,” says Donna, who says the happy couple wouldn’t even “sit down at the reception.”

Another hilarious moment came when it was time to start their honeymoon at a hotel.

“We walk them in, both of them with walkers and we get to the door of the room and Jo turns to Dad and said, ‘Well, aren’t you going to carry me over the threshold,’ ” says Donna. “And instead, he pushed her in the walker over the threshold.”

“It was so cute,” she adds.

But perhaps the most gratifying thing for Donna hasn’t just been to watch her dad find love again, but to see him find a different kind of love than he’d experienced before.

Although she initially thought their relationship was just about companionship, Donna says she “came to understand that it is the most extraordinary love story.”

“With Jo, my dad finally has somebody that absolutely loves when he pulls out her chair, when he asks her how she’s feeling,” she explains. “He finally had somebody that absolutely honors and cherishes those qualities in him and it’s the sweetest thing because he is the sweetest, kindest man.”

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Now that they’re married, the newlyweds are looking forward to spending the rest of their days together.

“We really love each other,” says Snyder. “She is a wonderful person and a kind, loving human being.”

He shares his story so that people know that it is never too late to fall in love — even when you’re nearly 100.

“It has been a whirlwind,” adds Cartwright. “To think that a man would come into your life, I just couldn’t even imagine it. And it just happened. I feel grateful and blessed. We both feel blessed. Love prevailed.”

Her advice: “Never give up on love. Anything can happen.”