Today is the 62nd wedding anniversary for my parents! They were married in Galveston, Texas on Friday the 13th in April 1951. My father was on a brief lay-over in Galveston during a voyage while he was an officer in the Merchant Marine . . . so my mother flew down to Texas from Rhode Island and they were married.
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| Arnold and Shirley about seven months before their wedding (October 1950) |
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| Arnold and Shirley circa 1954 |
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| Arnold and Shirley circa 1978 |
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| Shirley (October 10, 2010) |
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| Arnold (August 15, 2009) |
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| Arnold and Shirley on my father's 90th birthday (November 28, 2012) |
In preparation for my parents' 60th wedding anniversary in 2011, I delved into my genealogy records to develop the data necessary to prepared as accurate a Tew/Carpenter marriage history as possible. The results indicated at the time that my parents (at 60 years) had the third longest marriage I could identify in looking back eight generations in the direct Tew and Carpenter lines. There was one marriage of 62 years in the Tew line and the all-time leader from the Carpenter line came in at 67 years!
With 62 "Glorious Years" of marriage as of today, I can now announce that my parents move into a tie for second place with John Tew, Jr. and his wife Anna "Nancy" Kenyon (October 24, 1805 - May 6, 1868). Five years to go in order to tie Joseph Carpenter and his bride Nancy Mason Bullock (February 21, 1813 - May 4, 1880). GO FOR IT MOM AND DAD!!
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All photographs either taken by the author or in the author's collection.
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Copyright 2013, John D. Tew
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Congratulations to your parents. John, maybe you'll have the top record, although you have many more years to go.
ReplyDeleteThank you Barbara! I appreciate you taking the time to comment!
DeleteBTW, I got my most recent Adirondack Life magazine the other day and thought of you because there is a piece in it about Georgia O'Keeffe's Lake George days and her paintings from the area. A major show of her Lake George work is to open in Glens Falls, NY on June 15th and will run until September 15th before going to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, NM. She apparently did more than 200 paintings and drawings during the many years she spent some time at Lake George (1918 - 1934). Check out www.hydecollection.org.
So wonderful! Congratulations to your parents, John. What a wonderful achievement!
ReplyDeleteThank you Heather for commenting! It is quite something to contemplate and I really love seeing the photos of them as they matured and their marriage endured.
ReplyDeleteHappy Anniversary to your parents. My in-laws just celebrated 61 years this past February. It's a wonderful thing to celebrate!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations to your in-laws! 1952 was a very good year (the birth year of both me and my wife). ;-) Having just read your post about the WWII service of your father-in-law, Harry Handler, and how he lost two brothers in the war, a marriage of 61 years and counting along with the family he has must be especially dear to him!
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