Posted on 04/24/2005 5:10:55 PM PDT by Borges
ST. LOUIS, Mich. - Alexander J. Vance and his wife, Leola, made a life together for nearly 64 years. This week, they died 14 hours apart at Schnepp's Health Care Center.
Alexander Vance met Leola in Algonac, where Vance was building barges for the military in 1941. He was 20, she was 16.
Leola Vance later told her children that she liked her future husband's personality and the twinkle in his eye. He liked "everything" about her, Phil Vance, the couple's 48-year-old son, told the Morning Sun of Mount Pleasant for a Saturday story.
They married Dec. 19, 1941 and moved to the Alma area.
Alexander Vance worked for Alma Products for 39 years, retiring as general foreman about 20 years ago, while his wife was a homemaker.
The couple stayed in their home for as long as they could, until Parkinson's disease forced Alexander Vance to move into a nursing home in February.
Earlier this month, Leola Vance, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, began complaining that her head hurt. It later was determined that she had bleeding in her brain. By April 15, her husband also had taken a turn for the worse and both were in a coma in a nursing home.
"It was almost like a race," Phil Vance said. "They always said they wanted to go together and I sometimes think they were telepathically communicating about who would go first. But we were told she might live for several more days."
Alexander Vance died at 9:45 a.m. EDT Wednesday. Phil Vance said family members were singing hymns in his mother's room later that night, when she stopped breathing just before midnight.
"'Now you can be together,' I said," recalled Phil Vance, a retired minister who will perform a service at the Dewey Funeral Home in Alma on Monday.
"They had asked me to do the funeral. It's really a great love story."
Garth Brooks did one as well.
And what was the one:
"If you get there before I do, don't give up on me, I'll get there when my chores are through, I don't know how long I'll be..."
Country Music, is from the Heart.
Wow, I remember that song. That brought me to tears. So in love. So sad.
Marriage bump!
Fidelity bump!
True love bump!
Working through the problems together bump!
Communications bump!
And the rest can be your imagination.
God bless this couple!
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
God Bless them both now that they're Home together again.
Oh but they were "Blessed"
you have a nice evening and the very best to you and yours.
Semper Fi
Tommie
>>>>When I get married and become a dad of a daughter I'm going to be the worst. I'll rename my shotgun after one of her previous bfs and let the current one do the math :D<<<<
I think it was Bill Cosby that said "Kill the first one, then the word gets out"
Congratulations to both of you, and God bless you for your service.
Pride and selfishness are the root of all sin and the root of all divorce.
Or you could do like I did and have 'the Talk':
"Sooooo, Jon, Have you ever wondered what it's like to dangle under a bridge waiting for the train to come and cut the rope?"
....dude...get ME a job where I can watch chick-flicks at work....
Isn't it Romantic?
(Rodgers and Hart)
ISN'T IT ROMANTIC?
I've never met you, yet never doubt, dear;
I can't forget you, I've thought you out, dear.
I know your profile and I know the way you kiss,
just the things I miss on a night like this.
If dreams are made of imagination
I'm not afraid of my own creation.
With all my heart, my heart is here for you to take.
Why should I quake? I'm not awake.
Isn't it romantic?
Music in the night, a dream that can be heard.
Isn't it romantic?
Moving shadows write the oldest magic word.
I hear the breezes playing in the trees above
while all the world is saying you were meant for love.
Isn't it romantic
merely to be young on such a night as this?
Isn't it romantic?
Every note that's sung is like a lover's kiss.
Sweet symbols in the moonlight,
do you mean that I will fall in love per chance?
Isn't it romance?
My face is glowing, I'm energetic.
The art of sewing I found poetic.
My needle punctuates the rhythm of romance.
I don't give a stitch if I don't get rich.
A custom tailor who has no custom
is like a sailor, no one will trust 'em.
But there is magic in the music of my shears.
I shed no tears, lend me your ears.
Isn't it romantic?
Soon I will have found some girl that I adore.
Isn't it romantic?
While I sit around my love can scrub the floor.
She'll kiss me every hour or she'll get the sack
and when I take a shower she can scrub my back.
Isn't it romantic?
On a moonlight night she'll cook me onion soup.
Kiddies are romantic
and if we don't fight we soon will have a troupe.
We'll help the population,
it's a duty that we owe to dear old France.
Isn't it romance?
- Lorenz Hart & Richard Rodgers
I loved that song. . .and one I was thinking of. . .now that is another Country 'tear jerker' ; for sure. . .but I canNOT remember who sings it!!!!!!
Hildy, where are you?
Ya gotta work night security in a 175,000 square foot building constructed in 1929 as a Franciscan college. Lots of towers, circular stairs, and nooks and crannies. Spooky but fun. And ya get to watch DVD's, too.
i don't believe I've ever sung that last verse before. ;^D
My great grandparents had a similar story 100 years ago, but she died two days later. The San Franicisco Chronicle headline read: She Follows Him To The Grave
My cousin used to say that he had told her, I'll take you with me Kathleen.
Baucis and Philemon.
collin raye
I read a note my grandma wrote back in nineteen twenty-three.
Grandpa kept it in his coat, and he showed it once to me. He said,
"Boy, you might not understand, but a long, long time ago,
Grandma's daddy didn't like me none, but I loved your Grandma so."
We had this crazy plan to meet and run away together.
Get married in the first town we came to, and live forever.
But nailed to the tree where we were supposed to meet, instead
I found this letter, and this is what it said:
If you get there before I do, don't give up on me.
I'll meet you when my chores are through;
I don't know how long I'll be.
But I'm not gonna let you down, darling wait and see.
And between now and then, till I see you again,
I'll be loving you. Love, me.
I read those words just hours before my Grandma passed away,
In the doorway of a church where me and Grandpa stopped to pray.
I know I'd never seen him cry in all my fifteen years;
But as he said these words to her, his eyes filled up with tears.
If you get there before I do, don't give up on me.
I'll meet you when my chores are through;
I don't know how long I'll be.
But I'm not gonna let you down, darling wait and see.
And between now and then, till I see you again,
I'll be loving you. Love, me.
Between now and then, till I see you again,
I'll be loving you. Love, me.
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