‘A blessing’: Charlotte couple celebrates 70 years of love and laughter

CHARLOTTE — When you arrive at this Clanton Park home, you instantly feel the warmth and love between Mary and James Weathers.

James told Channel 9’s Hunter Sáenz their marriage has been a “pretty good ride.” That rise is still going strong seven decades later.

“I want to thank God for leaving us here together to celebrate 70 years of marriage,” Mary said. “That’s a blessing.”

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The two met at Second Ward High School in Charlotte. A friend introduced a young, stoic James to a girl whose beauty was outmatched only by her confidence and personality.

“I just, I was so in love,” Mary said.

Young love went the distance as James graduated and enlisted in the Navy. He was stationed in Newport, Rhode Island. The two wrote letters and called often.

“I initiated the calls most of the time, and the first thing I say, ‘I love you’,” James said. “And I used to keep the telephone hot, I guess, but her daddy got tired of me calling.”

One memorable letter — a proposal that wasn’t a question.

“He wrote me a letter,” Mary said. “He said when I come home on leave, we’re gonna get married.”

It happened on Oct. 29, 1955. Over time, four children would come along. There were highs and some lows, but these love-birds will tell you they didn’t do it alone.

“Once you put God in your marriage, then everything else will fall in place,” Mary said.

James admits he’s tested Mary’s patience on occasion, and he remembers the consequences.

“She’d hold a grudge,” James said. “Sometimes she wouldn’t fix my breakfast or fix my lunch, and then she wouldn’t say nothing for about two or three days, so it was a lot.”

Mary says it’s the hard and diligent work in marriage that’s meant the most to her.

Their commitment to each other is a testament that in the end, perhaps love and a lot of laughter are what life is really about.

The Weathers family will celebrate Mary and James’ anniversary with a private celebration Saturday. Mary is 88 and James is about to turn 90 years old. Both still live together, and Mary still cooks every meal for them.

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