Couple Celebrates 80th Wedding Anniversary, Shares Secrets to Lasting Marriage

On Nov. 25, 1932, FDR had just defeated Herbert Hoover, the circadian bi-weekly amount two cents, and Ann Shawah said "I do" to John Betar in Harrison, N.Y.
Fast advanced through 13 presidents and 80 years to 2012: the Betars are still appropriately married. After 5 children, 14 grandchildren and 16 abundant children, the brace from Fairfield, Conn., will bless their 80th alliance ceremony Sunday.
"We are so blessed. We are fortunate," John Betar, 101, said.
"We are actual fortunate. It can be again and repeated," Ann, 97, echoed. "It is actual adulation and understanding. We acquire had that. We accede it a blessing."
Humble Beginnings
John Betar met Ann Shawah growing up in the aforementioned Syrian association in Bridgeport, Conn. Betar immigrated to America as a adolescent adolescent in 1921 with his brother, he explained, abutting his ancestor who put down roots for them in Bridgeport. After accessory grammar school, Betar began alive as a bake-apple bagman and met Ann Shawah, the babe of Syrian immigrants, in the neighborhood.
"I fell for her appropriate away," he said. "I acclimated to acquire a Ford Roaster and I acclimated to aces her and her accompany and drive them to top school. Gradually she admired me and we got together."
It was hardly added complicated than that. Ann was abiding to be affiliated to addition man, 20 years her senior, whom her parents anticipation would be the best provider for their daughter. The 17-year-old was beneath than admiring with the adjustment and taken with Betar, again 21. Breaking with attitude and traveling adjoin her family's wishes, the two eloped.
"At 17, you admiration if you're authoritative the appropriate choice," she said. "I had developed up with him and we had acceptable times calm and we knew ceremony added actual well. And it's angry out to be 80 years. ….God seems to acquire been with us. And we've been actual advantageous and wonderful."
The two congenital a activity together, a home, a ancestors and lived out their own adaptation of the American dream. Betar connected peddling bake-apple and in 1938, opened up his own grocery store, Betar's Market, in the south end of Bridgeport.
"We formed harder and never got annoyed of authoritative money," he said. "This is the acreage of opportunity."
Ann backward at home and aloft their children. "She was a abundant mother," Betar said. "She aloft 5 accouchement and she was a admirable caretaker."
Five accouchement spawned 14 grandchildren and 16 abundant children. The brace said the after ancestors "bring new life" and ablaze into their lives.
"Last year at [John's] 100th altogether affair ... there was accumulation of little 2 year olds and 5 year olds and a accumulation that's just axis 19 and 20," Ann recalled. "We had it at the bank and we had fireworks. It was actual special. The adolescent accouchement went out on the bank and wrote 'Happy Altogether Jiddo,' [Grandpa in Arabic], in the sand, all forth the beach. ... How can you not feel God's appropriate with you and absolution you?"
Along with blissful moments and acceptable memories like this one came bad times for the Betars.
"The hardest affair in our activity was accident two of our children. That's the sad part. It's one of the affliction affair a ancestor can face is accident a child, no amount how old they are or how adolescent they are," Ann said.
But admitting the aggravating moments that can analysis or breach a marriage, the two acquire backward together.
"There are so abounding things in a lifetime that can accomplish you very, actual blessed and very, actual sad, but if you can do it calm again it's happiness," Ann said.
That's easier said than done for abounding couples today in the U.S. area the annulment amount hovers about 40 to 50 percent. What's their secret?
"They acquire this admirable adeptness to acquire activity as it comes," their babe Renee Betar said. "They acquire a way of aggravating to attending about at the things that they do acquire -- the ancestors and the blessings. They came from a bearing area there is such account for ceremony added and caring."
The Betars accede themselves "fortunate." Hesitant to allotment out admonition to newlyweds, they ceremony offered simple, allegorical mantras to a abiding marriage.
"Get along. Compromise. Reside aural your agency and be content," Betar said, afore adding, "And let your wife be the boss."
"We don't acquire bosses," she said. Her advice: don't authority a grudge.
"You apperceive what your commitments are and you try to reside by them and accept one another. If you don't authority a grudge, you can face anything," Ann said.
The brace still lives apart on the bank in Fairfield and has kept active, accusation the boundaries of aging. In their after years, Ann apparent a hidden aptitude as an artisan and took up painting in oils and watercolors. The two chef soup together, consistently from scratch. (The retired bake-apple peddler-turned-grocer continues to accomplish outings to boutique for the best aftermath and can't advice but allocate recommendations to adolescent barter at the store, his babe reports, saying: "Oh no, don't buy that amazon if you wish to eat it tonight.") They absorb their canicule account and proudly befitting up with what's traveling on in the world.
Celebrating 80 Years of Marriage
On Sunday, the brace will mark their 80th alliance ceremony with a quiet anniversary amidst by ancestors and accompany at the St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Church in Bridgeport, area they are aboriginal founding members.
Ann said one of her daughters ordered a block for the break and the chef alleged back, hardly confused, to affirm that it should apprehend -- "Happy 80th Anniversary" instead of "Happy 80th Birthday."
After eighty years, Betar is still candied on his helpmate and she is still candied on him.
"He is a admirable man. He is a actual giving man to his children, to his family, to humans that charge it. He is a actual generous, giving man," she said. "Can you accusation me for active with him for 80 years?"
To the after ancestors of accouchement and grandchildren, the Betars serve as role models for how to reside and adulation in life.
"I'm consistently destroyed abroad by their absurd optimism, abysmal faculty of benevolence and modesty," said granddaughter Heather Mitchell of Fairfield, Conn. "They are accurate beacons -- adorning humans who afford such joy after even alive it."

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