These longtime lovebirds are a rare breed.
The newly crowned “oldest married couple” in the world is an adorable pair of former Big Apple centenarians who met during World War II — and now swear by the power of staying curious, having lunchtime beers and simply “loving each other.”
With a combined age of 216 years and 132 days, Eleanor Gittens, 107, and Lyle Gittens, 108, of Miami, were given the title by the Guinness World Records on Wednesday. They are both the oldest living married couple (aggregate age) and the oldest married couple ever (aggregate age).
The pair, who got hitched more than 83 years ago, was also named the world’s “longest-married couple” by the age record-tracking group LongeviQuest this week.
“They love life and they love each other,” said their grandson, Hasani Gittens, 49, who is a journalist and former New York Post reporter.
“And they love good food.”
“They’ve been the epitome of what partnership is,” added Gittens, who was also a founding editor of the news website The City.
“They’re both super intelligent and worldly … and they both really value education a lot.”
The pair met while studying at Clark Atlanta University in 1941 and married on June 4, 1942, in Bradenton, Florida.
Lyle, who had been drafted for the war, was granted a three-day pass from Army training at Fort Benning in Georgia and had to return shortly after tying the knot, Eleanor said in an interview with longeviquest.com.
“He had to go right back to his duties, but as you can see [the love] lasted,” Eleanor explained.
“I wondered whether I would ever see him again,” Eleanor recalled to the Westside Gazette in 2022.
Lyle was soon sent to fight in Italy in the 92nd Infantry Division, while 24-year-old Eleanor, who was pregnant, moved to New York City, where she met Lyle’s family for the first time.
She got a job doing payroll for a company that was making aircraft parts for the battle abroad, and later became a public school teacher.
After Lyle returned home from war, he got a government job working for the State of New York in the World Trade Center.
The hard-working couple began a nightly ritual of a martini together after a long day in the 1950s.
They now keep tradition alive by drinking Modelo or a glass of red wine at lunch, according to Hasani Gittens, who said his grandparents were all about moderation and loved cooking everything from seafood to collard greens together.
Over the years, the couple lived in Brooklyn and had three children together — Lyle, Angela and Ignae — and Eleanor went on to earn her doctorate in Urban Education from Fordham University at age 69.
During the pandemic, the couple moved to Florida — but Lyle still misses the Big Apple, he said.
“If you’re not living in New York City, you’re camping,” he told LongeviQuest of the sophisticated, culturally rich hub.
Asked the secret behind their marriage’s longevity, Eleanor said, “We just melded … We love each other.”
“I love my wife. It’s simple,” Lyle said when asked the same question.
The couple received the “longest-married couple” title this week after Manoel Angelim Dino, who previously held it with his wife, died in October.
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