The Windsor Journal

You would think that Valentine's Day and and politics don't mix, but one of the most beloved traditions in Windsor has its roots in an election year “ploy.” As the story is told by those in the know, in 1962 town clerk George Tudan was looking for a way to “get his name out.” The position, at the time was elected, and Tudan had to campaign hard every two years to keep his job. What could he do to attract some attention? Give out a free license for the first couple that would marry on Valentine's Day, he decided, and then call the media to report on the event. It was pure genius and started a tradition that half a century later is still going strong.

“He was larger than life,” remembered this week Wolcott teacher Betsey Lepak, Tudan's daughter. “He was creative. As a kid, I remember when he needed jobs done around his home, he would enlist the neighborhood kids to do the work for him and then he gave them fireworks as a reward. Those kids would do anything for him.”

Giving out a license was hardly TV material, so Tudan convinced the town's baker to donate a cake, the jewelery store to offer a piece of jewelery, a merchandising company to prepare some gift packs – all of them his buddies, anyway. And he made sure there would be at least a couple to marry.

“He knew that people would come to marry on Valentine day, and what he did was contact them in advance,” Lepak recalled with a smile. “It was 'staged'.”

Staged or not, the event caught on quickly. Since then, every February 14, 'Mr. Valentine,' as Tudan came to be known around Connecticut, would don his maroon jacket on and offer his blessings and a free license to one lucky couple.

Did it work?

“There was always someone from the newspaper, and one of the TV channels would always come,” Lepac said. “We were never allowed to watch TV at the dinner table as kids. Valentines' Day? That rickety TV stand would be wheeled into the dinning room, the big old portable TV would be placed on that stand, and we would watch daddy on TV.”

And it worked in another way too: Tudan was elected as town clerk for more than 30 years, a remarkable stretch than ended only when he decided to retire – in Saybrook, so that his retirement was a true retirement, his daughter says.

Over the years hundreds of couples tied the knot on Valentine's Day under the auspices of Windsor's town clerks – at some point free licenses were extended to all couples marrying during the day, and later on during the period around the holiday.

Among them, a young Bill Lewis, who is now the town's Fire Chief.

Pat Kuszik, who now works at the town clerk's office and coordinates this year's celebration was also a Valentine's Day bride. She and her husband Michael are always reminded by their friends that they owe the town the $6 dollars they didn't pay to get married. “Now the fee is $30 dollars,” Kuszik observed this week with a smile.

Tudan loved recounting Valentine Day stories to his family and friends. Lepak remembers especially the time he came home, excited because the groom in that year's wedding was serving overseas.

The only time he felt a little different, Betsey Lepak noted, was when Peter Lepak approached Tudan to ask for his permission to marry his daughter.

“I was his daughter, and he wasn't ready to let me go,” Lepak said. “That's how he was. When he had his first grandchild, he did not want to be called grandfather. He was called 'uncle George.'”

Still, love always wins, and Tudan once more “staged” the wedding. When? Valentine's Day, of course, said his daughter.

“I said to him 'I've watched this my whole life. I want to be the Valentine couple,” she says.

Twenty years later, on the 35^th anniversary since the day he started Windsors newest tradition, town clerk Kathy Quin asked now retired Tudan to come once more at the town hall, to be part of that celebration of the Valentine couples.

But there would be some brides that needed to be given away, he was told. Would he do that honor? Tudan accepted.

“And then they called me and they arranged for us to be one of the couples that would reiterate our vows – but they told us not to tell dad,” Lepak said. “So we arrived and I had my children very young, and he saw us and he did a motion 'Get out of the way,' so I looked at him and I kept smiling and I had my dress on and they gave me a flower, and he whispered that he had to give a bride away. And I said 'Dad – I am the bride.'”

“He was so touched, he just broke in tears and he beamed, he was excited and he grabbed me and we walked down together,” Lepak remembers.

It may have started as a “ploy” but by then even for everyone in town, George Tudan included, Valentine's Day weddings were a real Windsor tradition.

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