Ohio Couple Married For 70 Years Die
Hours Apart
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[April 21, 2014]
By Victoria Cavaliere
(Reuters) — An Ohio couple who met as
teenagers and were married for 70 years, almost never sleeping apart,
died from natural causes within a span of 15 hours, according to their
daughter.
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Helen Felumlee, 92, died on April 12 at their home in Nashport,
Ohio, about 55 miles east of Columbus, and her husband Kenneth
Felumlee, 91, passed away the next day, according to their joint
obituary.
"We knew when one went, the other was going to go," daughter Linda
Cody told the Zanesville Times Recorder. "We wanted them to go
together, and they did."
The couple met as teenagers and married in 1944, raising eight
children together, according to the obituary.
Helen was a homemaker and Kenneth was a railroad worker and later a
mail carrier, and both were active in the Methodist church, where
they taught Sunday school.
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They spent their retirement traveling to all 50 states by bus and
even after 70 years of marriage, they still ate breakfast every
morning holding hands, Cody said.
The couple never slept apart until about three years ago, when
Kenneth had part of his leg amputated due to circulation issues, she
said. Helen became his main caretaker and also started spending some
nights on the couch.
"She was staying strong for Dad and he was staying strong for her,"
Cody told the Zanesville Times Recorder. "That's what kept them
going."
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Kenneth Felumlee passed away with his family by his bedside after
saying "Mom's dead," Cody said.
The couple also had 23 grandchildren and 43 great-grandchildren,
according to the obituary.
(Reporting by Victoria Cavaliere in New York;
editing by Barbara
Goldberg and Chris Reese)
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