Couple celebrates 71st wedding anniversary at UMC at The Shores
OCEAN CITY — Be patient with each other. Just say yes because there’s no one else you want to be with. Those are the secrets to a lasting marriage from a couple who just celebrated their 71st anniversary last week.
Bill and Mae Smith, who reside at United Methodist Communities at The Shores on Bay Avenue, were enjoying a lunch with cake and balloons as others stopped at their table to congratulate them Thursday, Aug. 24. They reminisced on their long lives together, from frugal beginnings to lean years early in their marriage, putting their children through college, and on to a retirement that began decades ago.
“They are very sweet. They have touched all of our hearts,” nurse Colleen Hull said of the Smiths. “We want to celebrate our seniors that have grown old together. They are just full of love after 71 years. They do nothing separate and they exude love as soon as you see them.”
That was abundantly evident as they talked about their time together.
Bill, who turned 95 two days before their anniversary, was a teacher for 15 years and a guidance counselor for 25 more in Tenafly before retiring 30 years ago. Mae, 92, who grew up in Park Ridge, was a seamstress who made her own wedding gown.
At a time when so many marriages fall apart, they explained why theirs lasted, both of them smiling at the question.
“We have lots of patience with each other,” Bill said, laughing.
“You just learn to say yes and you get along just because you want to be with that person,” Mae said.
“We knew we wanted to be together and you learn to say yes,” she said. “What other reason would there be to be with that person? There wasn’t anyone I wanted to be with more than him.
“I guess he felt that way about me,” she added, laughing as well.
They met through Bill’s brother and his then-girlfriend, a student at Montclair State University. Mae knew the girlfriend.
“The girl was a Jehovah’s Witness and she said, ‘Oh, I’m going with this nice boy and his father is a Methodist minister.’ I said, ‘Does he have a brother?’ She said, ‘Sure.’ I said, ‘Well, bring him over some time,’ so she brought him over.”
For Bill, it was love at first sight.
Mae said she didn’t know about that, but he certainly made an impression on her family.
“My mother really liked him,” she said, laughing. “She said he is a nice gentleman and he was always nice to my family.”
Mae’s family moved from Brooklyn, N.Y., to Park Ridge in Bergen County when she was 4. Bill grew up for a spell in a more rural area in Hunterdon County. For both families, those were lean times.
“We didn’t know it was the Depression. We didn’t know any better,” Bill said. “Everyone was pretty much the same. … I went to a one-room school for a while until they built a regional elementary. Mae was pretty much in a residential area.”
Mae’s parents came to the United States from Syria and her father had a store in Park Ridge. Her mother taught her to sew and she became a seamstress, working in the garment district of New York City, which was just over the bridge from Park Ridge.
She pointed out since they were both raised in the Great Depression, they didn’t have a lot. “Anything you got was really special to you because it was something you really made with your own love.”
The couple got married in 1952 during the Korean War.
Mae made her own wedding gown, sewing little white roses into it.
“I had made other dresses before for other people,” she said. Making her own “was no big deal. I had done it many times.” She also made the bridal gowns for her sisters and friends.
She said as a seamstress the designers would create a gown and she would actually make it. “I was pretty good,” she said, laughing.
Although Bill’s father was a Methodist minister, they got married in Mae’s church, which was bigger, but that one didn’t have much room outside for formal pictures. Bill said, “Down the road there is a little Catholic Church and I would bet we could take the pictures there.” They got permission and did.
At the reception hall, there were two receptions taking place.
“There was one wedding on this side and one wedding on that side,” Mae said. “And the band was right in the middle,” Bill added.
There were more lean years for the young couple starting out.
“When I tell you we had nothing, we really had nothing, and we made it,” Mae said.
“He was going to college to get his degree and teaching and I was working in New York,” she said. “We were very frugal and saved our money and made good use of it.”
Bill was headed into service during the Korean War. Although he wasn’t drafted until later, they were able to stay in veterans housing as he did his practice teaching.
“I had to spend all day with the teaching and getting ready for it so I wasn’t drafted until the following August, a year later,” Bill said.
Bill didn’t have to go overseas.
“I was lucky,” he said. “I got as far as Baltimore in the headquarters of a counterintelligence corps. That’s where I served.”
Being careful with their money, they were able to put all three of their children — Donna, Mark and Lori — through college.
“To me a college education was very important,” Mae said. “When our children finished school, they knew they were going on to a better education and we helped them. We had three children in college at the same time.”
“We surprised our son because once he finished college, he was trying to figure out how he could go to law school, so we got him through law school, too,” Bill said.
“I don’t think a kid needs to start working when he makes practically nothing and has to pay for a college education as well,” Mae added.
She believes parents should help get their children through college.
“You have to help. We always helped our children. It meant a lot to our children.” (Years later, they also helped their grandchildren.)
“When they graduated, they said now you can go out and spend your money,” according to Mae. “We said we don’t have any money to spend. Everything is paid for and we don’t owe anybody anything. We were very happy.”
After spending more than a half-century in Park Ridge, there came the time to make the move to United Methodist Communities.
They moved to The Shores because they “just got to the point we couldn’t keep up the house and do all the cooking and everything,” Bill said.
“We’re lucky we have our younger daughter who lives in Egg Harbor Township and we see her two to three times a week. She takes good care of us.”
He said that was part of their decision to live at The Shores. “We had visited here so we knew what the place was like and we brought other people down to see it.”
Moving, he said, wasn’t an easy decision.
“It was hard, though, leaving the town where we had our home for 66 years. It was hard to move and come down here, but a lot of our friends were dying so it wasn’t quite so bad.” That happens when you get to their age.
“It was a big decision,” said Brooke Chappell, director of sales and marketing at United Methodist Communities at The Shores. “They ultimately decided to be closer to family. It has worked out really well. They’re really happy. It’s kind of been a seamless transition for them.”
Chappell pointed out there are about 10 couples at The Shores and they make sure to celebrate their anniversaries.
“The celebration of love really ties into our mission of abundance and to really celebrate every single special moment in our residents’ lives,” said Michele Musto, volunteer services coordinator. “We really don’t know how long we’re going to be here for, so all those moments we can share with our neighbors, the staff, family and friends, I think it is just so sacred.”
Musto said the Smiths “kind of encouraged us to bring back celebrating anniversaries and birthdays. We did that at a very high level prior to COVID, then COVID shut everything down. Now we’re bringing everything back.
“The Smiths helped us to remember what’s important, and embracing love and special relationships is something we want to continue to do. Anniversaries, birthdays, any milestone, we’re back to being celebratory,” she said.
The wedding album
During their anniversary party, a nurse brought their wedding album to their table.
Although its age was showing on the outside, inside the large black and white photos were crisp. Mae asked, “Who else would bring a wedding album here?” She said their children wondered why they would want to take the wedding album to The Shores. “I said, ‘I don’t know. Maybe someone would like to see it.’”
She was right.
As she slowly flipped through the pages, staff members gathered around to see her getting ready with her sisters, coming down the steps in the house in her gown with her parents waiting below, more from the wedding and reception, those formal pictures at the Catholic church down the street, and one looking out of the rear window of a car with a “Just Married” sign on the back.
Just married. Seventy one years ago.
The couple smiled as they named the people in the photos while noting only they and the flower girl in their wedding party survive. “You come from strong stock,” Musto said as they laughed.
When Mae paused at the photo of the couple coming out of the church, Musto asked, “Were they throwing rice?” Bill smiled and replied, “Yes, it stung too.”
Still vibrant, they are looking forward to anniversaries to come.
“My mother lived to almost 100,” Mae said, “so I’m expecting to do like my mother.”
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff