Centenarian Grieves After Losing Husband

AP ^ | 2/2/04 | JIM SUHR

[anniegetyourgun]

ST. LOUIS (AP) - Over 82 years of marriage, George and Amelia Limpert seldom were apart.

As centenarians with grandchildren who themselves are grandparents, they held hands. Folks who marveled at the Limperts got the same response from George: Amelia always was the prettiest gal he'd ever seen.

Since George died last month of complications from pneumonia at age 102, Amelia, 100, has been heartbroken, daughter Mary Ruth Fink says.

"She isn't taking it well, not at all," Fink, 69, said Sunday as her mom rested at Little Sisters of the Poor retirement center.

It's a love story dating to 1919, when George was a machinist in hometown St. Louis at a plant that made paint spray guns and lamp guards. Amelia Kwiatkowski was a teenager from Pennsylvania working the assembly line.

George knew - at least hoped - she would be his wife, though Amelia's family from the get-go had other ideas.

Traditionalists in post-World War I America, her immigrant parents didn't want their Polish daughter marrying George the German, saying he wasn't "from the Old Country," Fink says.

Three times, their engagement was broken off before they finally jumped into his Model T and eloped Sept. 9, 1921, spending $8 on a marriage certificate and a civil ceremony with a justice of the peace in nearby Clayton.

A month later, the devout Catholics had a formal marriage ceremony. He was 20, she an 18-year-old woman who had only a third-grade education but taught herself to read and write.

During the Great Depression, the Limperts struggled. George, out of work most of the time, took odd jobs making parts for old cars, painting houses and fixing faulty plumbing.

The couple raised nine children in a one-bedroom home where the five girls and four boys slept in an attic of "wall-to-wall beds," says Fink.

All the while, the Limperts never stopped doting on a brood that has blossomed over the years. There are seven surviving sons and daughters, along with 39 grandchildren, 117 great-grandchildren, 45 great-great-grandchildren and eight great-great-great-grandchildren.

Nearly blind, Amelia now fights pneumonia herself. And without her beloved George, Fink fears her mother is losing the strength to go on.

"She's not crying or carrying on. She's just sad and feels like she's dying. She says that when dad left it felt like it left a hole."

[anniegetyourgun]

With all the bad news in the world, it's great to read such stories.

[CGASMIA68]

"Bitter Sweet" fits this one....

[Scannall]

God bless them. 82 years is a long time to be married, and that's great. Many of the Hollywood Elite can't seem to manage it for 82 days.

Dan

[KantianBurke]

sad and touching.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

May God bless Amelia. What a beautiful love story.

[FrogMom]

82 years? God bless 'em!

Frogdad and I have been married 34 years today (2 Feb), we are newlyweds.

[PhilipFreneau]

About 20 years ago I read a feature in the Greenville News-Piedmont (Greenville, SC) on one of my relatives and his wife, Frank and Mary Tinsley, celebrating their 75th wedding anniversary. He died at 100. She died two years after, also at 100. I assumed that to be some sort of record -- both husband and wife living to be over 100 -- until reading this post about George and Amelia Limpert. God bless Amelia in her grief.

[cubreporter]

Now THAT is the kind of story we need to read more about with regards to love and marriage. I just responded to a post earlier on another thread about "Submissive Wives." Oh how this beats the garbage written about marriages today.

This beautiful couple I am sure had their ups and downs and no money but...they had the love inside for each other and the trust and belief in each other and that is what is important. Material things didn't matter...their love did! Well, this is a beautiful love story ... married, raising a large family on barely nothing but...those children are there for their heartbroken mother and they truly understand the loss their mother feels without her beloved. There IS a hole left for her with the passing of her soulmate. No doubt about that. She is sad and no doubt too her son is correct that she probably won't have the strength to go on. But...look at what these two had over the years becuase they loved and respected each other. God bless this woman. She will remain on this earth until God is ready to call her home and when He does...she will be reunited with the love of her life forever. I am moved to tears and so grateful to read something sooooo beautiful in todays age of selfishness, and throw away everything society. God bless her.

[bd476]

Happy 34th Anniversary

FrogMom and FrogDad!!!!!

[prognostigaator]

As I mope around the house, touching things that she had touched, gazing at photos of her taken over the 46 quick years we had together ,yearning for her presence even today, I easily empathize with the loss,the emptiness that Amelia feels....

Shortly after 9/11, Claire lost her battle with ovarian cancer, but the significance of the suddenness of the death of loved ones on that fate-full Tuesday morning in September must be harder still for those families than for Amelia and myself..

Let us not ever forget the loss of those American lives...