Long marriages run in my family. My parents have been married for 65 years and my wife and I have celebrated at several relatives’ Golden Anniversaries.
But I was still blown away when blogger Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings reported the end of a marriage in Minnesota that had lasted 83 years when Clarence Vail, 101, died recently. He is survived by his 100-year-old wife, Mayme, and four generations of offspring.
Clarence and Mayme’s 1925 union was so enduring that even their grandchildren had grandchildren at the time of Clarence’s death. To put their married life into a broader context, consider that these events occurred in the first five years of their life together as a married couple:
Babe Ruth had his famous 60-home run season for the New York Yankees
Charles Lindbergh became the first aviator to solo nonstop across the Atlantic
The stock market collapsed on “Black Thursday” in 1929
Movies were silent and only in black and white at the time of their marriage and Mickey Mouse didn’t appear until 1928
Randy raised the question of who had the longest marriage in history. The folks at Wikipedia have taken a stab with this list that has Clarence and Mayme at No. 7.
What are the longest-lasting marriages in your family history?
Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand -- Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died -- is available at Amazon.
Flickr photo courtesy of RozzieM.
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