For one couple, Valentine's Day is an 80th wedding anniversary
NAPPANEE, Ind. -- Jack and Dorothy Hoffer want to spend Valentine's Day the way they have for 79 previous wedding anniversaries -- quietly and without much fanfare.
"We never did do a lot of celebrating," Dorothy, 98, said Tuesday. "I don't know why. We just never did go all out."
Eighty years ago, the couple got to their wedding by horse and buggy, not because it was stylish, but because it was the only form of transportation available to them in 1921.
Dorothy remembers it being cold that day with a little snow on the ground. Jack, 102, doesn't recall too much, except: "I was scared to death. I don't know why."
Dorothy has a simple explanation about why the marriage has lasted so long. "We took that marriage vow 'til death do we part' seriously," she said. "We just took it a day at a time."
That's some 29,200 days together, not counting the two-year courtship before the wedding. The couple live by themselves in the farmhouse 20 miles southeast of South Bend they've called home for the past 65 years.
Jack, who farmed the 40 acres around his house until he was 88, continues to garden when it's warm. Dorothy still cooks, cleans and does the laundry.
Their 72-year-old son, Robert, lives next door in a house Jack helped build. Robert said the thing he learned from his parents was: "Keep quiet and don't argue."
The couple don't really know to what to attribute their longevity.
"The Bible says you can live to be three score and 10 years. But if your days are good you can live longer," Jack said. "We must have had some good days."