John and Ann Betar got married on Nov. 25, 1932, even though Ann’s mother had hoped to marry her off to someone else. John was 21 at the time and Ann was just 17. They eloped in Harrison, New York to escape the Bridgeport, Connecticut neighborhood where they lived. And the two are both still alive and still married, 81 years later.
They are officially the longest married couple in the U.S., according to Worldwide Marriage Encounter. Although it was so many years ago, they remember the trouble their marriage caused and look back with laughs, reports Reuters.
“Everyone was hopping mad, and my wife's aunt consoled my father-in-law by telling him not to worry, the marriage won't last,” said John, now 102. He still drives, “though not quite as fast as the day we got married.”
Ann, now 98, recalled, she “had no choice but to elope because my father was set on me marrying a much older man, and I was 17. John was not the boy next door, but the boy across the street who I loved.”
She remembered how he drove her to school in a Ford Roadster. “That's why she married me, she loved that car,” John chimed in.
The couple has seen this country and the world change since their marriage. “We have watched the world change together,” John said. He added that the key to staying together so long is “always agree with your wife.”
According to People, the couple have 14 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren. Their oldest daughter is 80, although they have lost another daughter and their son to cancer.
“We'll be together forever,” John said, with Ann adding, “somewhere we will be.”
Congratulations to the Betars.
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