Sapulpa Herald
Sapulpa, Creek Co., OK
November 29, 2006
Bristow
couple married 77 years
Associated PressBRISTOW, Okla.
(AP) — Gene and Elinor Coleman celebrated their 77th wedding
anniversary Tuesday — a marriage that may be the state's
longest.
Official records aren't kept so no one
knows for certain. But the Colemans have been married long
enough that their anniversary brought plenty of attention to
their one-story, clapboard house with a cuckoo clock in this
community southwest of Tulsa.
He is 96 and she is 94, and Coleman says most days "we sit here
and look at each other."
That, he says, is a blessing because "we're lucky that both of
us are still here to look at."
And after all these years, they still sit together like
newlyweds, with his arm around her.
"When we got married, people got married to be married," says
Elinor. "They made a vow, 'Until death do us part,' and we
didn't feel like we would break that vow."
Their marriage has never been perfect, she says, "because
perfect doesn't exist."
Coleman says that since Sept. 29 he and Elinor have "answered
more questions than George Bush."
That was the day the couple went to the Tulsa State Fair to
attend a banquet for people married more than 50 years. Of all
the people there — "it seemed like a thousand people to me,"
says Coleman — no one had been married longer than the Colemans.
They
met on a blind double date, although they had actually seen each
other previously.
"It was at a box supper," he said. "I was sitting on the second
row from the front, and I heard somebody behind me drop a chair.
I turned around to see what was happening, and there was the
prettiest girl I ever saw."
They would be married seven months later on Thanksgiving Day —
Nov. 28, 1929.
One of their sons died in 1992 of a heart attack at age 52. "You
never get over losing a child, no matter how old the child is,"
says Elinor. "Emotionally, that's as bad as it gets."
They have two other sons, five grandchildren, 10
great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren.
Coleman says he hopes they make it to their 80th anniversary.
But, says Elinor, "We can't control that. Only God knows."
Says Coleman, "But we can try. We can try."
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