This was posted on
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By Stephanie Booth; and photographs by Gillian Laub .
The stories of 6 couples who have shared life for over 50 years.
What's their secrets ? keep reading ....
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June & Bill Pritchard
Married 64 years
Sedona, Arizona
IN THE BEGINNING:
As a 16-year-old junior in Venice, California, June often found herself stealing glances at Bill, a handsome senior on the high school gymnastics team. Then came a major blow: "He asked out my younger sister, Thelma, who was not only prettier than me but didn't talk nearly as much." Just as June was giving up hope, Bill came into the hardware store where she worked after school and asked if she liked Chinese food. "What about my sister?" June asked. "Well, somebody in this relationship has to talk," Bill replied. Less than two years later, they were married. And Thelma happily took her place in the wedding party as the maid of honor.
MARRIAGE THEN AND NOW:
After a stint in the air force, Bill worked as a firefighter while June raised their two sons. On his days off, Bill built several motels on lots he had bought nearby, in California. (They moved to Arizona in 1980.) Meanwhile, June trained as an accountant and kept books for the motel business. "I did the brain work and Bill did the brawn," she says. "We trusted each other all the way." Despite their penchant for teamwork, there have been bumps in the road. "When our sons were young, Bill had a roving eye," says June. "I hoped he would eventually outgrow it, but I also knew he would never take it to the point where he would jeopardize our marriage. So I just said to myself, 'Tough it out, old lady!' and I've never been sorry."
Today, Bill, 84, and June, 82, are the grandparents of three and great-grandparents of five and own nine properties in and around Sedona. "The sex part is the big thing when you first get married, then gee whiz! That fades in a hurry," says Bill. "But June and I always felt like partners and friends, and that's the most important thing in any marriage."
SECRETS TO A HAPPY MARRIAGE:
"We don't get in each other's way. I don't challenge what Bill spends. And he knows better than to touch my computer." —June
"If June makes a decision and I'm not there or vice versa, the other follows through. We always stayed united in front of our children." —Bill
"Bill can be very knot-headed about things. When we have our spats, we each speak our mind and then we go on our way. We don't always expect everything to be resolved or to change the other person's mind." —June
"She always liked my legs, so I still wear shorts!" —Bill
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Betty & Louis Chernoff
Married 60 years
Franklin, Michigan
In the beginning:
In 1941, an 11-year-old Louis walked into a junior-high-school dance and asked a friend to point out the prettiest girl in the room. "He pointed to one girl and I said, 'She isn't pretty enough.' But the girl behind her was." Louis tapped Betty's dance partner on the shoulder and announced that he was cutting in, and he and Betty danced together the rest of the afternoon. They kept in touch over the years but didn't date seriously until college. "Then we did everything together," says Louis. At age 20, they married. For a wedding gift, Louis bought Betty a torpedo-back Buick Riviera. But the next morning, as they prepared to drive away for their honeymoon, the car broke down in front of her parents' house. "My father said, 'My God, is the marriage over already?' " Betty recalls with a laugh.
Marriage then and now:
The couple, both 80 (and the parents of two, grandparents of five, and great-grandparents of one), keep busy: Louis runs a mechanical-contracting company; Betty pursues classes in the creative arts. In their spare time, they still do as much together as they can. Like dancing every morning at 6:30. "We enjoy disco dancing and jitterbugging," says Betty. "We keep going until a song comes on the radio that we don't like." When Betty recently tripped and crushed her heel, requiring four months of bed rest, Louis simply brought the good times home to her. "Every night, he went to my favorite restaurants and ordered food, then set out the china in our bedroom," she says. "You've got to love someone who goes the whole nine yards."
SECRETS TO A HAPPY MARRIAGE:
"We don't read newspapers at breakfast. We talk to each other." —Betty
"Our clocks click exactly the same. Whenever Betty wants to do something, I want to do it, too." —Louis
"My mother and daddy got along like peaches and cream. You see that sort of example and try to do what they did." —Betty
"We married young, but we were grounded. To make it work, you need to have a good head on your shoulders — which even some 35-year-olds don't have." —Louis
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Macon & Jim McDavid
Married 51 years
Raleigh, North Carolina
IN THE BEGINNING:
Macon (preferred nickname: Gorgeous) had no shortage of suitors offering to drive her to the Durham, North Carolina, insurance company where she worked during the summer of 1956. But one fellow, a teller at the bank where she made deposits, was insistent. "I thought he was so annoying!" she says. "He'd ride alongside me in his old Ford, going 10 miles an hour and calling out the window." Once she agreed to accompany Jim (who goes by "Deeds") to a University of North Carolina football game, Macon discovered that she was fond of the Tar Heels and the curly-haired boy who had brought her. They married two years later, in 1958. The Florida hotel they stayed at during their honeymoon cost $5 a night, and for fun they went to a dog race.
MARRIAGE THEN AND NOW:
At times it's been a rough ride for Deeds and Gorgeous. When they were first married, Jim, a real estate investor and manager, worked long hours to make ends meet while Macon stayed at home with their three kids. "We were so poor that I taught dance to neighborhood children just to buy our kids summer sandals," she recalls. Then, in 2003, the couple was pitched into what Macon calls "a black hole" after their son, Mark, died suddenly of head trauma at the age of 41. "We wondered if something could have been done differently," says Jim, "but we never blamed each other." The grandparents of four visit Mark's burial place every week, attend a support group for bereaved families, and try to keep Mark's memory alive for his daughter. "I've never understood how people abandon each other for no reason other than being tired of the other," says Jim. "Macon and I believe, 'Let's do what's right and good — and do it together.'"
SECRETS TO A HAPPY MARRIAGE:
"In every family, someone's got to drive the bus. But sometimes you change positions. You say, 'OK, this is not my thing after all. It's your turn to drive.' All our marriage, Jim took care of our checkbooks. Then, three years ago, I realized I had these wonderful math skills and could do them easier than he could." —Macon
"You've got to be able to trust your spouse. If she passes me the ball, I try to run with it. And if I pass her the ball, she does the same." —Jim
"Jim loves to talk, so by now I've heard most of his stories. But they're all good ones, so I still happily listen. And as for me? Jim thinks I can do just about anything." —Macon
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Imogene & Elmer Edwards
Married 55 years
Gary, Indiana
IN THE BEGINNING:
Talk about love at first sight. Elmer was a precocious one-year-old and Imogene was just two weeks old when he first set eyes on her at a party. "I want that baby!" the toddler announced, according to both his mother and hers.
Still smitten in elementary school, he proposed to her with a ring from a box of Cracker Jack. (She turned him down.) The children remained friends, but it wasn't until Imogene was a senior in college and Elmer was working at a supermarket that they finally went on a real date. On their third evening out, Elmer proposed again (and later presented Imogene with another ring — this time an emerald-cut diamond). Imogene said yes, and shortly after her graduation they eloped. The couple were deliriously happy but, worried their parents would be angry at the sudden union, didn't tell their families for two months. Once they found out, Elmer's mother remarked to him, "Well, you finally did get that baby."
MARRIAGE THEN AND NOW:
Both Elmer, 79, an automobile assembler and a retired assistant gym coach, and Imogene, 78, a community-college professor who also works with elementary-school children, credit their marital success to compatibility. Says Imogene, "He and I may disagree about what to watch on TV, but when it comes to big things, like family" — they have two grown children and two grandchildren — "we're always on the same page." Case in point: When Imogene's mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, both agreed they should take her into their house rather than place her in a nursing home. Happiness, too, comes from knowing Elmer's good points (and quirks) as well as knowing her own, says Imogene: "When I'm not home, Elmer sleeps late, vacuums, does not dust, plays games on the computer, tapes my soaps, and is ready with a smile when I come back in the door."
SECRETS TO A HAPPY MARRIAGE:
"Never stop courting. We always try to see each other the way we did in our early days, even though I sure look different from that girl he married!" —Imogene
"We like to hit the road. We're not stuck in monotony. We've sailed down the Nile and got aboard a camel." —Elmer
"Elmer always takes my hand and leads me across the parking lot like I'm his girl and he's taking care of me." —Imogene
"I take Imogene's hand and help her walk because otherwise she's liable to
fall down." —Elmer
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Ayako Kawakami & Harold "Pete" PetersenMarried 53 years
Saint Germain, Wisconsin
IN THE BEGINNING:
It was Thanksgiving 1955. Pete, a 19-year-old army staff sergeant stationed in Mojiko, Japan, looked up from his dinner in the mess hall to glimpse "the most beautiful creature I had ever seen." Pete approached Ayako, then 17 and a visitor to the base, but she wasn't interested. "I couldn't speak English; he couldn't speak Japanese. I didn't see how it would work," she says. With the help of an interpreter, Pete dogged Ayako for weeks with invitations to dinner and the movies. "And something between us clicked," says Ayako. Their relationship became serious. But once the couple applied for a marriage license, Ayako came under suspicion of being a Communist by the U.S. government (which was a common occurrence at that time). For months she endured background checks and police interrogations. "But the longer we waited, the more we wanted to be together," she says.
MARRIAGE THEN AND NOW:
After the wedding, the couple moved to America. "My family said, 'You won't last!' " says Ayako, 72. "I had never lived away from home. I cried a lot." To help her keep from getting homesick, Pete took her shopping in Chicago's Chinatown and enlisted his mother to keep her company in the afternoons. "He supported me 100 percent," Ayako says. Pete, 74, became a police chief while Ayako raised their three daughters. Today "we go fishing and snowmobiling and spend time with our five grandkids," she says. "I still miss Japan, but Pete has always understood how important it is to me. We try to visit once a year. And if I ever go alone, he calls me every day." They even bring their grandkids so they can point out where they met. Ayako has never had regrets about her decision to move across the world for Pete: "If anything, the time went too fast."
SECRETS TO A HAPPY MARRIAGE:
"My father always told me, 'Marry a smart man.' Because if I married a smart man, I would never starve." —Ayako
"Let her go shopping. More than once, I've left a garage sale and gone to get my truck to carry all her antiques home. But true to Japanese tradition, we tolerate and accept every part of each other's personalities." —Pete
"When we just started out, Pete used to lose his temper a lot. The stress of his police job got to him. I always stayed calm, and soon he wanted to handle things like I do." —Ayako
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Stella & Ben Sonnenschein
Married 51 years
Miami Beach, Florida
IN THE BEGINNING:
Ben and Stella had childhoods ripped apart by the Holocaust. Ben, who grew up in a small town in Poland, spent four years in concentration camps before being liberated by the Russian army at age 20. Stella was a "hidden child," concealed from the Nazis in her native Warsaw by families her parents had begged or paid for help. After the war, Stella reunited with her mother, who took her to live with relatives in Israel, while Ben moved to America. The two met in 1958, when Ben, a 33-year-old factory manager living in New York City, traveled to Tel Aviv on vacation. Stella, 23, was the first of two blind dates he had on the same night. They both felt instant chemistry — and then Ben explained he had to go meet the other woman. "He told me it wouldn't be fair to stand her up," says Stella. "Right then I saw he was a mensch." Two nights later, while waltzing at a rooftop restaurant under what Stella calls "big, romantic stars," Ben proposed."I'm generally not a quick decision-maker," says Stella, now 74. "It took me five years to decide on curtains for my house. But when it's right, it's right." One week later, they were married. "It was the most expensive vacation I ever took," jokes Ben, 84, a retired textile executive. "And I'm still paying for it!"
MARRIAGE THEN AND NOW:
Decades later, Ben and Stella say their relationship remains romantic and full of surprises. For example, Ben loves to hide chocolate around the house for Stella to find. Aside from occasional disagreements about how to raise their two children ("Ben always pushed — I'm the permissive one," says Stella), the two say they have been blessed with a calm home life. (For years they never spoke of the Holocaust to each other, but now they regularly go to dinner with other survivors and talk about their experiences, which Stella describes as "healing.") "I know it sounds unbelievable that we almost never argue," says Stella, who formerly owned a clothing and jewelry boutique. "But what Ben and I endured early on taught us that peace and a good heart are the most important things. We don't sweat the small stuff."
SECRETS TO A HAPPY MARRIAGE:
"Ben doesn't say, 'I love you,' and I don't force him to. Instead, I appreciate it when he brings me a sandwich in bed. Especially since he hates crumbs in the sheets." —Stella
"Don't get angry over more than one thing at a time. People jump around from one issue to another." —Ben
"We still kiss. We're affectionate. But it comes naturally. It doesn't happen for show. Sometimes we just lay down in bed and hold hands." —Stella
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All i was thinking about is how can you spent so many years and be in love with the same person and fall in love with them everyday again and again.
Is it true that love dies while marriage survive?. Can love survive without marriage?.
Anyway, these stories shows that love lasts and i choose to believe that :)
