Couple who found love later in life had different journeys before their paths converged on the dance floor

Chicago Tribune

14-02-2025

Sanna Longden and Clint Seely were in their 70s when they met in 2016 at a dance at the annual Door County Folk Festival. She had traveled from Evanston, and he was local to the area. The two got to talking and hit it off.
'The next day, he came to a class that I was teaching, and I was very impressed that he could actually dance,' Sanna said.
Sanna was a longtime folk dance teacher and world dance educator traveling across the country and the globe attending conferences and teaching varying styles of dance, she said. Clint said he had been 'dancing off and on for a while' and would participate in folk dancing events at the University of Chicago, where he was a faculty member for 35 years.
'We talked some more,' Sanna said of that weekend. 'I came back to Evanston after the weekend was over thinking, 'Gee, that was a nice guy.''
So she sent him a text. He gave her a call. They talked for the rest of the summer, and by Labor Day weekend, Sanna took a bus trip to the Milwaukee Art Museum.
'It was not a trip I needed to take, but I got on the bus with a suitcase, and there was that same guy in the art museum,' Sanna said. 'He met me there, and we drove back to Door County, and I spent the weekend with him and the rest is history.'
Ever since, Sanna, 87, and Clint, 83, have been later-in-life partners. The two are a quintessential example of people who found love in their golden years after having lived full lives separately before meeting each other.
Sanna now lives at The Mather, a senior living community in Evanston, and Clint joins her there six months out of the year from November to May when he closes up his Door County home for the winter. During Clint's six months in Door County, Sanna will work out ways she can make the trip up north and spend some time with him there.
'It's not my favorite time when he goes,' she said. 'I gave up my car when I moved to The Mather, so I've been known to get on the train and meet him in Milwaukee, hitch rides with friends, it's always arrangements.'
Clint said he wants to keep his Door County home as long as he can keep driving.
'I tell people with somewhat of a smile, when I can't drive, we won't be doing all of this,' he said. 'But if by that time they have self-driving cars that are reliable, then maybe I stay even longer.'
'We're going to be awfully old by that point,' Sanna said in response.
In Sanna's perfect world, Clint would sell his house and move to The Mather full time immediately.
'I don't want to be alone again,' Sanna said. 'I hate it when I see that car leaving with all his stuff in the car in May.'
Clint and Sanna had different journeys before their paths converged.
Sanna grew up in the Milwaukee area before heading to the University of Michigan, where she graduated in 1959 with an English degree and also became 'hypnotized' by music and dance, she said. She moved around with her first husband, living in Madison, Rhode Island and Indianapolis before settling in the Evanston area in the late 1960s. They had two children along the way.
Ultimately, Sanna and her first husband divorced. She married her second husband, who she also met through a dance group, in 1976, and they were together until his death in 2014.
She started a recreational folk dance group in Evanston with her second husband, which she said they ran for 40 years and is still active thanks to some friends who took over. She also worked as a freelance editor in academics, helping students and staff at Northwestern University edit papers, dissertations and books. By the early 2000s, Sanna said she had given up editing and focused more on dance.
Clint was also married before. He met his late wife, who died in 2011, after he started teaching at the University of Chicago. Originally from the Bay Area, he graduated from Stanford University in 1963 with a biology degree and then joined the Peace Corps. He ended up in Bangladesh for two years, which at that time was East Pakistan. After having taken a liking to the languages of the area, specifically Bengali, Clint returned to the U.S. and attended the University of Chicago to get his graduate degree in South Asian languages and civilizations.
He started teaching at the university in 1971 and met his wife while also working towards his doctorate. After some 19 years together, the couple decided to get married in the early '90s and were together for another two decades until her death. The couple had moved to Door County after Clint retired in 2006.
Sanna moved to The Mather in spring 2016. She was still picking up the pieces after her second husband's death, she said, and she was 'just pulling her life back together and beginning to see a future.'
It had been a couple of years since she had been to the Door County Folk Festival, which Sanna said gathers people from around the Midwest every July for a weekend of performances, workshops and parties. A friend persuaded her to attend that summer.
'I was definitely not looking for anybody,' Sanna said. 'I hadn't gotten to that point yet, but I knew that pretty soon I would have felt like I needed someone in my life had I not met Clint.'
Clint said he was indeed looking for somebody.
'Loneliness is a horrible state to be in, and I can confirm this,' Clint said. 'I was very interested in finding someone. I went to this dance thinking maybe … and it worked out! But I had been other places thinking maybe, and it hadn't worked out. But I was definitely looking for somebody to share my life.'
A couple of years after they met, Clint decided to spend half of each year in Evanston with Sanna, and they've 'created a very strong community that we're very much a part of,' Sanna said.
They both enjoy participating in the various activities and events at The Mather and in the surrounding neighborhood, from Lunar New Year concerts to card games, movies with friends and monthly dance classes that Sanna teaches. With their shared appreciation for the arts, they also attend plays and go to the opera every now again.
Chrissy Fernandez, the spa and fitness manager at The Mather, helps facilitate Sanna's dance classes and said she remembered when Sanna moved into the community with a 'vibrant' energy. When she met Clint a couple of years later, Fernandez said she approved.
'It was just this really nice feeling I got of the relationship between the two of them, and he seemed like such a good fit for her,' Fernandez said.
Clint almost always attends Sanna's dance class when he is around, Fernandez said. He helps her set up the music and even demonstrates a lot of the moves, she said.
'It's really sweet to see him always support her,' Fernandez said. 'He's also so willing to be part of this activity that she's so passionate about.'
Sanna's children are also fond of Clint, and she was proud when they met him, she said.
'They're very grateful he's in my life,' Sanna said.
Having met Clint in her late 70s, Sanna said her perspective on love and relationships had certainly shifted from earlier on in her life. She realized time was too precious to waste.
'When you're in your 20s, you have your whole life in front of you,' Sanna said. 'You have marriage and children and you have to make decisions that last a long time. In your 40s, you may have come undone from a relationship, and you know what life holds — and what you're looking for might be a little different. When you're in your 80s, who knows how long we have?'
Clint said both he and Sanna understand 'it's very hard to lose somebody.' He said that Sanna will say 'sometimes humorously and not so humorously, 'I don't want to experience losing someone like a husband again, I am going to predecease you,' and I can feel the same way.'
As for marriage, Sanna said it's not a 'necessary game' for them at this stage.
'We've had our families, our careers, our houses and our gardens,' she said. 'Now, we hope for health, affection and companionship.'
Clint said his relationship with Sanna 'keeps me going.' For anyone in a situation similar to what he and Sanna faced almost a decade ago, Clint said, 'Do what feels comfortable and natural.'
'Don't give a damn about what people say,' Clint said of finding love later in life. 'There are a lot of people that stay single, but if you're not so inclined that way, do what you want to do. Be with who you want to be with.'