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| San Diego Couple's Final Wish Fulfilled After 75 Years of Marriage (ABC News) |
Jeannette and Alexander Toczko spent their lives in love.
So it was only fitting that after nearly 75 years of marriage, they died within a day of each other, their final wish fulfilled.
They were both born in Stamford,
Connecticut, in 1919, the children of Polish immigrants, both coming
from large families. The couple began dating when they were 8 years old,
according to their children Richard and Aimee.
"My dad carried around a picture of my mother in her Holy Communion outfit in his wallet," Aimee Toczko-Cushman told
ABC affiliate KGTV in San Diego.
Jeannette, 96, and Alexander, 95, married in 1940. Alexander joined the U.S. Navy. He returned safely. The family grew.
According to
U-T San Diego,
Alexander pursued a career in advertising in New York City during the
1950s and 1960s. The husband and wife traveled together. They visited
Bermuda.
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| Courtesy Toczko Family
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They moved to San Diego in the early 1970s. Alexander established his
own advertising and fashion photography firm, according to U-T San
Diego. Jeannette was his chief stylist. After the move to California,
Alexander pursued another passion: golf.
“He would be waiting in the chair with his putter,” Richard Toczko said.
Alexander played every day, until he broke his hip in a recent fall, Toczko added
Alexander’s health quickly declined. “He was going fast,” Toczko told KGTV.
Hospice
brought a bed into the couple’s home, and set it next to Jeannette’s.
As her husband’s condition worsened, Jeannette’s health also faded.
She wondered what day it was. Her children said it was June.
“June
29th?” she asked. That date marked Alexander and Jeannette’s 75th
wedding anniversary. Sure, the family said, buying flowers and balloons
to celebrate the occasion.
"And we said happy anniversary, and my
mother was thrilled to death because it was their anniversary and she
knew that he was going and that they had made it to 75 years," Aimee
Toczko-Cushman told KGTV.
Alexander went first, on June 17, with his wife by his side.
"And
he died in her arms, which is exactly what he wanted. I went in there
and told my mother he was gone; she hugged him and she said, 'See, this
is what you wanted. You died in my arms and I love you. I love you, wait
for me, I'll be there soon,'" Toczko-Cushman said.
Jeannette died a day later.
The couple was buried Monday, with relatives holding a funeral mass and joint 75th anniversary ceremony.
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