Off The Record
A Couple Married For 84 Years Reveal A Simple Secret To A Long Lasting Marriage
Recently, a Black couple commemorated their marriage of more than eight decades!
Cleovis and Arwilda White celebrated their 84-year marriage with a ceremony held in late September, which was organised by the Arkansas Family Council.
According to its website, its “mission is to promote, protect, and strengthen traditional family values found and reflected in the Bible by impacting public opinion and public policy.”
According to USA Today, it turns out that their marriage is the oldest known union in the history of the state.
Arwilda, who is 98 years old, said she always liked to “pray” and encouraged people to do the same in their marriages when asked about the secrets to maintaining such a long connection.
In an interview with USA Today, she advised, “Know how to get on your knees, and get you a bible because that bible is going to have to take you through all kinds of storms.”
The couple’s daughter claims that when Cleovis was 13 and Arwilda was 9, they first met because of Cleovis’ brother, who had a disability and would frequently approach random girls he ran into and grasp their hands.
Though Cleovis was younger, he made use of his height to move in between and reclaim his brother’s hand. But on this specific day, Arwilda’s friend saw Cleovis and encouraged her to run towards him instead of his brother when he tried to take her hand.
He knew they would get married eventually the instant he saw her sprint in his direction.
Living in the same neighbourhood, they first met at a church function when 40 cent boxed suppers prepared by the church’s women and girls, including Arwilda, were being sold.
The pair then got married on July 24, 1939, eight years later, when Arwilda was thirteen and Cleovis was seventeen.
They were split up shortly after because Cleovis was a World War II soldier. He studied car mechanics at Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical & Normal College in Pine Bluff, 60 miles distant, after returning to the United States in 1945.
“He wasn’t able to go back home to Clarendon,” their daughter Kathy Whiteside-Sims said. “It was a process of calling somebody to call somebody to go and tell somebody ‘I’m not coming home. I’m in school.’”
After graduating, Cleovis worked at Pine Bluff Arsenal, and Arwilda took care of their twelve children by staying at home.
“Sometimes they had children that lived with them,” Family Council member Charisse Dean continued. “They were just pillars in the community.”
It is Arwilda’s favourite trait about Cleovis that he is “always trying to help people.”
When asked what he thought was the nicest thing about his wife, Cleovis, however, found it difficult to specify just one.
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“I love 99% of her,” he said.
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