Love isn’t easy, it’s complicated for everyone. Every couple has their moments of doubt, each relationship has its ups and downs. But Karen Lehmann and Dennis Vinar’s relationship was harder than most. When they first found each other, it seemed as though everything was keeping them apart. But when Karen became pregnant and Dennis proposed, it looked as though their life together would work out. Then, heartbreakingly, the couple was forced to give up their child.
They parted from their daughter, and from each other, for what they thought would be forever. Their lives went on without one another. But life has a funny, unbelievable way of recreating what was lost. After decades, Dennis and Karen finally discovered why they were kept apart and what happened to their baby girl.
1. Unexpected Love Story
Who can forget the feeling of falling in love for the first time, usually while overwhelmed by the raging hormones of youth? Young people find love in the most unexpected places, and when they do, they fall head over heels. And teens in 1958 were no different!
Like all first loves, Dennis Vinar and Karen Lehmann’s relationship was intense and exciting. High school sweethearts from Brownton, Minnesota, their tale is the classic love story of two opposites attracting. However, their story would be anything but typical.
2. The Local Football Star
Dennis Vinar is the classic, all-American boy next door. After being held back a year because of a childhood illness, Vinar vowed not to allow anything else to stand in his way. From then on, Vinar’s life was filled with hard work and big dreams. His father was a Buick salesman in St. Paul, and it was not uncommon for Dennis to help him in exchange for extra cash.
By high school, he had grown into a handsome man (and dapper dresser), who caught all the ladies’ eyes. Being the local football star certainly didn’t hurt either!
3. A Quiet, Clever Cutie
While Vinar was outspoken, Karen Lehmann was quite the opposite. A reserved girl from a small town where everyone knew everyone, she was more concerned with her education than being popular.
They did share something in common, however: fantastic work ethics. While Vinar worked for his father and ran football drills, Lehmann was hard at work studying or practicing the clarinet. By the end of her freshman year in high school, Lehmann was already a star clarinet player in the band and on her way to early college acceptance.
4. Young Love
The two lovebirds would first meet in 1958, when Lehmann was 13 and Vinar was 15. He was quickly drawn to her but didn’t immediately act on his feeling. She was young and shy, and he had no desire to scare her. By 1960, however, things changed, as Vinar had achieved his sports stardom, and Lehmann had grown into a beautiful musician. By the end of the year, he asked her to go to prom with him through an inscription in her yearbook. She said yes in an instant.
“All the girls were jealous,” she would later say. Today, their young love sounds like something from a high school rom-com.
5. Getting Serious
Vinar was smitten with his girlfriend. She was unique, and he would often be late for football practices because he was walking her home from school. Lehmann genuinely enjoyed the interest the popular athlete showed in her. He wasn’t the most sophisticated guy in town, but his devotion to her was profoundly moving. Lehmann and Vinar were head-over-heels (or cleats) in love. Their new romance was promising and exciting.
Vinar had hopes of building a home with his new girlfriend, but something happened that blew all of their plans out of the water.
6. A Bump In The Road
The couple wouldn’t get the future they dreamed of so quickly. When she was only 15, Lehmann found out that she was pregnant.
Vinar did what was expected of young, expecting fathers in the 60s, he proposed. However, Lehman’s parents (above) were far from thrilled with the match. They refused to allow the marriage. Given that Lehmann was underage at the time, her parents had the final word about the mother and her child.
Instead of marriage, the Lehmanns had different plans for their daughter. Karen was shipped off to a “maternity home.” The couple’s romantic visions were halted.
7. Hidden Away
Today, the few maternity homes that exist are hospitals where expecting mothers can get free, confidential care if they lack the financial resources for other hospitals. Before the 70s, however, maternity homes were adoption-oriented hospitals for unwed mothers, as giving birth to an illegitimate child was a major social taboo.
Due to the social norms of the era, confidentiality, regarding both hospital practices and residents, was a priority. As such, it is hard to know precisely what “maternity homes” were like in the 50s and 60s, and many negative stereotypes born from this era still haunt modern maternity homes.
8. Immediate After Shock
Conflicted and shocked, young Lehmann was overwhelmed with the situation. She decided to obey her parents’ wishes. Karen gave birth in the maternity home, naming her newborn daughter Denise, after the baby’s father, Dennis. After the birth, the couple’s child was quickly put up for adoption.
Lehmann was understandably shaken, as was Vinar. Despite her parents’ wishes, Lehmann got back in touch with Vinar. Vinar even proposed again, much to Lehmann’s delight. Again, they came up against her parents’ opposition, who remained disapproving of the match.
9. Another Test For The Couple
Lehmann’s parents weren’t the only thing standing in the way of true love. Duty came calling, and Vinar was recruited into the army. Meanwhile, Lehmann started college at The University of Minnesota. The young couple feared what the distance, and demanding lifestyle of a soldier, would do to their relationship.
A true romantic, Vinar sent his beloved letters from his deployment. Unbeknownst to Lehmann, however, her father hid Vinar’s messages. He kept writing, but she never answered, and he didn’t understand why. On her end, Lehmann thought Vinar must have forgotten about her and of the baby they had together. Over time, the relationship fizzled out.
10. Life Goes On – Or Does It?
While both were heartbroken, they went on with their lives, as people most often do. Vinar tearfully said in an interview “I went through hell to be with her, but I couldn’t. We couldn’t be together.”
The former lovebirds went on with their separate lives. Lehmann graduated from college with a Bachelor of Science in Interior Design, married, and had children. Vinar finished his military duty and also married and had children of his own. The two would not communicate for over fifty years.
11. A Simple Game
After fifty years, Vinar and Lehmann’s relationship and child became little more than a memory of a turbulent time in their youths. But memories of the past have a funny way of reappearing.
In October of 2014, Vinar was at a dinner party with some friends when they began playing parlor games. After a few games, a friend posed a question to the group: “If your doctor gave you 60 days to live, who would you want to take out to dinner and just talk to?” Vinar said the answer came to him “without hesitation:” Karen Lehmann.
The thought stuck, and a few days later, Vinar’s got the opportunity to contact his high school sweetheart.
12. Technology Changes The Game
A few days after the party, Vinar, who separated from his wife several years earlier, made a seemingly trivial choice. At his friend’s encouragement, he opened a LinkedIn profile. That mundane action ended up having an unexpected influence on his and Lehmann’s life.
As he browsed the website, learning more about its features, he began looking up past coworkers through the site’s search function. This little exercise brought back the memory of the party, encouraging him to try something novel: What if he were to try and find his former flame, Karen?
13. That’s My Lady!
Vinar typed in “Karen Lehmann,” and there she was, third from the top! Now living in Monroe, Washington, she was working in home design, just as she had dreamed as a young girl. Vinar was ecstatic, clapping his hands and exclaiming: “That’s my lady!”
Later he explained that Karen had never truly left his mind or heart. Vinar decided his discovery was a sign. After debating whether he should or not, Vinar called his old love. But first, he had to get through the receptionist. He said “tell her an old friend of fifty years ago called. My name is Denny.” The receptionist at first thought the call was a joke, but ultimately texted Karen, just in case.
Everyone is incredibly thankful for that text, as Karen called her old boyfriend back in minutes!
14. Renewed Contact
Understandably, Lehmann was stunned to hear from Vinar after such a lengthy separation. But just like Vinar, she desired to reconnect with the man who had meant the world to her, someone she thought she had lost forever. At first, they corresponded via email. Then they graduated to talking on the phone.
Vinar found out that just like himself, Lehmann was single. After a few months, the two decided to meet in person. Maybe, just maybe, there was still a spark to be rekindled between the former lovers?
15. Meeting Again
Vinar bought a plane ticket to Washington. Nervous and riddled with anticipation, he was finally on his way to see his true love once again. Lehmann awaited his arrival with equal anticipation. It had been fifty years, who knows what it would be like seeing him again? What if the man who won her heart as a teenager was no more than a stranger to her now?
Vinar got off the plane in Washington on January 19th, 2015. Could his reunion with the girl he fell in love with when he was only fifteen possibly measure up to his dreams?
16. Romance Flourishes Again
Karen and Dennis met again, and the old chemistry and love were as intense as ever, even after so many years apart. They knew immediately that they were always meant to be together, and that they should never part again.
Only two days after reconnecting, Dennis and Karen fulfilled their decades-old promise to wed. “It was wonderful. Absolutely wonderful,” Vinar said to KARE 11 of their belated wedding day. Lehmann, now Lehmann-Vinar, packed her things and went back to Minnesota with her “new” husband.
17. The Missing Child
However, the newlyweds’ honeymoon bliss was incomplete. While they got the wedding they yearned for as teenagers, there was something else, someone who should have been part of their new family. It was the child they had put up for adoption all those years ago.
They had longed to meet and see their daughter again, but they were unsure whether or not they should look for her. Dennis was convinced their child would be happy to finally meet her biological parents, while Karen was unsure. She feared reuniting would turn their long lost child’s life upside down.
18. A Decision Made
Dennis told his wife: “I found you now, and my life will be complete if we find our daughter.” Karen was deeply moved – and finally convinced. The couple found the adoption agency that Karen’s parents turned to back in the 60s. They sent the agency a letter, asking them to locate their adopted child and reach out to her. The agency took a while to retrieve all of the necessary documents but, eventually, they were able to trace the Vinars’ daughter.
19. A Shocked Daughter
The Vinars’ daughter, Denise, was going by the name Jean Voxland. She was a 56-year-old mother of three, happily married, and living not far from her newly reunited parents in Kenyon, Minnesota.
A brief letter found its way to the Voxland home, saying a family member was looking to get in touch with Jean. Fearing it was some sort of scam, she almost threw the letter away. But her husband, Andrew, had his doubts. He decided to do some detective work and found out the message really did come from the adoption agency. Jean chose to answer and was shocked to discover the ones looking for her were her birth parents.
20. Will She Understand?
After receiving her parents’ letter, Jean Voxland spoke with the adoption agency and set up a meeting. Jean had actually considered looking for her birth parents in the past, but never imagined they’d look for her!
The Vinars were thrilled to hear they were going to reunite with their child. Dennis hadn’t seen her since the day she was born, while Karen had not seen her daughter since she was a few months old. Would their daughter, now a mother herself, truly understand why they had given her up? Only a face-to-face meeting in the Lutheran Social Services office would tell.
21. First Meeting Since Birth
It was late May of 2016 by the time they were all ready to meet in the offices of Lutheran Social Services in Saint Paul, Minnesota, along with an assigned caseworker. Understandably, everyone was very nervous on the morning of the reunion. After all, they had not “seen” each other since Jean was a child.
In the end, when they finally met, Karen quickly learned she had been worrying about nothing. While Jean, Karen, and Dennis were all incredibly shaken, it was out of pure emotional joy. After all these years, their family was finally reunited. But that first meeting was just the beginning.
22. A Family Reborn
While first getting to know her parents, a million thoughts crossed her mind. Memories of her time as an adopted child in Minnesota and her recently passed adoptive mother collided with the incredible love story of her birth parents. In time, Karen and Dennis’ relationship with their long lost child grew. Today, Jean gets together with her birth parents once a week.
“I feel like there’s been divine intervention here. For…us to get together the way we did, everybody had to be in the right place at the right time,” Jean said in a recent interview.
23. The Bigger, The Better
The Lehmans and the Vinars quickly came together to form one large family. Between Karen’s son, Dennis’ three children from previous relationships, Jean, her husband, and their three children, it has become quite the clan!
But their reunion was not complete yet, as they decided to become more than a family. Just a year after reuniting, the group formed a company, Vinar Companies, and now all work together as furniture and lighting manufacturers.
Meanwhile, the unique story of the Lehman-Vinar-Voxland family was starting to take on a life of its own.
24. The Story Comes Out
After Jean met her birth parents for the first time, she was overwhelmed with emotion. To help process her feelings, she followed her husband’s advice and began to write down her thoughts and emotions on the matter. As the relationship deepened and she learned more about her parents’ history, she started writing down their story as well.
The story of the child and her parents was too incredible to be ignored. The Voxlands’ and the Lehman-Vinars’ friends and colleagues were all shocked by the magnitude of their story. The one most enthralled by the story, as both an observer and key-player, was Jean’s husband, Andrew. And while reading his wife’s stories, he had an idea.
25. Inspiring Story Of An American Family
Andrew Voxland quickly realized that Jean, Karen, and Dennis’ story was not just a personal one, but a universal story of love and perseverance that should be told. With this in mind, he started helping Jean arrange and edit her diaries, with hopes of turning them into a book.
Soon, Jean encouraged her parents to participate in the writing process and tell their life stories. How did it feel to be torn apart as young parents, what was it like to be reunited with their child after all those years? You can find the book that chronicles their incredible story, How Did You Find Me…After All These Years?: A Family Memoir, on Amazon.
26. Famous Authors
Since the publication of How Did You Find Me in 2017, the Vinars became quite the superstars. Their story has crisscrossed the world, and so have they! Dennis and Karen have traveled all over the United States, going to bookstores and libraries, telling their story, and signing copies of How Did You Find Me. “Dennis and Karen Vinar’s book is proof that love never dies,” said one librarian who organized an event.
Back in the 50s, neither one of them could ever have imagined that someone would one day want their autograph! While Karen and Dennis might not have expected their fame, Jean was not surprised. “It is a good story, and it is a true story,” she said.
27. The Family Today
Today, Jean gets together with her parents once a week for dinner – when they’re not off being celebrities, that is! She says they still talk about their incredible life story, amazed at how everything came together.
Meanwhile, since publishing the book, the Vinar-Voxland family has grown! “We now have five children, nine grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren,” Karen said in a recent interview with the Everett Washington Herald. The family loves that their incredible story is forever cemented in their book. Not only has it allowed them to share their history with the world, but it allows them to “pass on this piece of history” from generation to generation.
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