21/12/2015
81 Years Married ….. “The longest married couple…”
John and Ann Betar of Long Island Sound eloped on Nov. 25, 1932, fleeing their close-knit Syrian neighborhood in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and driving as fast as they could to Harrison, New York, to avoid Ann's father's plans to marry her off to a man 20 years older.
"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," chuckled John Betar, now 102 and still driving "though not quite as fast as the day we got married."
Ann Betar, 98, said 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 said.
We have watched the world change together," said John Betar. "The key is to always agree with your wife."
Life has not always been easy. The couple lost one daughter and their only son to cancer within the past 15 years.
"No matter how many children you have or how old they are, it's the worst thing that can happen to a parent," Ann Betar said. "But our oldest daughter is 80 years old."
The Betars even finish each other's sentences. ”We'll be together forever," said John, as Ann added softly, "somewhere we will be."
