(See ceremony video below the story)
By Nicole M. Wells, Special Writer
CRANBURY — Kept apart by fate for 69 years, Elizabeth Garzio, 84, of Hamilton, and Drewey Pulliam, 87, of Eden, North Carolina, finally got the fairytale ending to their storybook romance when they both said “I do” on Saturday, Oct. 27, at the gazebo in Village Park.
The bride wore a deep blue dress and chatted with Mayor David Cook and family and friends as she waited for her noticeably absent groom, and waited, and then waited some more.
After a few phone calls, word spread among the guests that the driver of the groom’s car had gotten lost but was now following a family member who knew the way to the park.
”Usually it’s the bride that’s always late instead of the groom,” Elizabeth said, to peals of laughter among the dozen or so guests waiting for the ceremony to start.
Finally, as honking geese flew overhead and the sun seemingly slow danced with the clouds across the sky, casting a myriad of shadows on the ground below, the groom arrived. The anticipation amongst the guests became palpable as he made his way to the gazebo on the shores of Brainerd Lake to meet his bride.
Loved ones looked on, cameras in hand, as Mayor Cook officiated and Elizabeth and Drewey publicly professed a love that’s been blossoming for more than half a century.
Their story began at a USO function in New Brunswick, in April 1943. She was 15, and had just joined the USO as a volunteer, and he was an 18-year-old U.S. Army GI, stationed at Camp Kilmer, near New Brunswick.
”He walked in with a friend and caught my eye while I was serving coffee,” Elizabeth said.
Drewey went through the line, received his coffee, drank it and came back up for a refill —three times. Four cups of coffee later, Elizabeth said, he asked her to go out on a date with him.
”He asked if he could take me to the movies the following Saturday,” Elizabeth said. “And we went.”
From Camp Kilmer, Drewey would often hitchhike to Elizabeth’s childhood home, at 34 Maplewood Avenue to see her.
Shortly after they met, he shipped out to the Pacific theater, writing letters to her while he was abroad. In one of them, he made a special request.
”He had written and asked me to marry him and I accepted,” Elizabeth said.
The year was 1944.
Their wartime romance was interrupted, however, when Drewey became sick with malaria he had contracted while fighting in the Pacific islands.
In and out of VA hospitals, he broke off their engagement by letter in 1946 because “he didn’t want his wife to have to take care of a sick man,” Elizabeth said.
He went his way, she went her way and they both married other people and started families.
Sixty-five years later, in December 2011, Elizabeth’s daughter, Elizabeth Voorhees, was on her Facebook page when she discovered a mutual friend with the same last name as her mother’s former fiancée.
”She said, ‘Mom you need to come look at this on the computer!’ and I said ‘I’m not interested in anything on the computer,’” Elizabeth said.
She relented and her interest quickly piqued when they discovered the man was Drewey’s son, Ray Pulliam.
”(Our family) only became knowledgeable about this friendship from a Christmas card he got (from her) last Christmas and he called (Elizabeth) and they started talking,” Ray Pulliam said.
Elizabeth said Drewey called her on Jan. 7 and from then on “every night he called me on the phone.”
At the end of June, he traveled from North Carolina to visit her. From June 20 to July 8, Drewey and Elizabeth reconnected and it was during this visit that he proposed, she said.
”I said, ‘I don’t think I want to get married again,’” Elizabeth said. “He said, ‘Think it over and then when you’ve thought it over let me know.’”
She accepted his second proposal in the middle of August.
”I’m alone and I don’t like being alone,” Elizabeth said. “I got thinking about it and he always had a piece of my heart.”
During the course of their wedding planning, Drewey suggested Cranbury for the ceremony location. The gazebo in Village Park overlooks Brainerd Lake, which has special significance for the couple from years past.
”When Drewey came down on a weekend pass, sometimes we would go swimming in that lake,” Elizabeth said.
According to Elizabeth, their request to have Mayor Cook marry them was originally denied because neither the bride nor the groom were residents of Cranbury at the time of the wedding.
After hearing the couple’s story, however, the mayor had a change of heart and agreed to make an exception for them, Elizabeth said.
In addition to the show of support from the mayor, Elizabeth’s friends in attendance at the ceremony approved of the match wholeheartedly.
”She’s a nice lady and they’re well met,” Alice Schaffer, a friend of the bride, said. “It was meant to be.”

