California couple, married 67 years, die holding hands

[mick silver]

California couple, married 67 years, die holding handshttp://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/d/0c/d0c3eb8ca18907492a4b337b5cec5193.jpeg (http://www.reuters.com/) 18 hours ago




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Floyd Hartwig and wife Violet are shown in this undated Hartwig family photo released to Reuters February …





(Reuters) - A California couple, married 67 years, died hours apart while holding hands this month, their daughter said on Thursday.



Floyd Hartwig, 90, and wife Violet, 89, died on Feb. 11 in their home in Easton, California, outside Fresno, their family said.
The couple had known each other since they were children and married in 1947 while Floyd was on leave from the Navy, going on to settle in a ranch in Easton.
"They enjoyed working side by side their entire lives," said daughter Donna Scharton. "They were very loving. Very hard-working. Not into materialistic things."
Each had battled illnesses in recent years. Violet had dementia and had suffered strokes. Floyd, who survived bladder and colon cancer, had been diagnosed with kidney failure, family said.
Floyd and Violet had been given hospice care in the last weeks of their lives, and with the end near, family members pushed their beds together, Scharton said.
View gallery
http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/msr3jlv.Z7UpB1NDT73kEw--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTM0MjtpbD1wbGFuZTtxPT c1O3c9MzAw/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2015-02-26T233427Z_1_LYNXMPEB1P0YW_RTROPTP_2_USA-CALIFORNIA-COUPLE.JPG
(http://news.yahoo.com/photos/family-photo-floyd-hartwig-wife-violet-died-hours-photo-233427362.html)Floyd Hartwig and wife Violet are shown in this undated Hartwig family photo released to Reuters Feb …

Floyd died first, holding Violet's hand. She passed away five hours later, she said.
"They were very devoted to each other and had a lot of respect for each other," Scharton said of their long marriage.
The couple had three children, four grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren, family said.
Violet, known as "Vi," would wake up at 4 a.m. through much of her life to tend to her family and the ranch, "sewing, cooking, gardening, and volunteering for the PTA," according to her daughter and her obituary.
Floyd spent six years in the Navy and served in World War Two, his obituary said.
(Reporting by Victoria Cavaliere in Seattle; Editing by Eric Beech)


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View Comments (408)

[midnight rambler]

Good for them.

[Twisted Titan]

Blessed indeed are the ones who can find happiness and have the sense to treasure it all their lives

[singular_me]

definitely believe in synchronicity and love beyond everything but there could be the work of a hidden hand...

[Ponce]

May they be with "The Force"

V

[Dogman]

Have known and heard of many old long term married people dieing close to gether time wise. When one would die, people start wondering when the other one may go, because they give up the will to live when their partner died, some just die of heartbreak and the loss.

Usually it is within a month, sometime less and sometimes more, some may even make it a year or more, but they seem to have died grieving for their lost partner in life.

[mick silver]

when I first seen this story about this couple i thought how sad it was but then I saw that they had somthing most people in this world will never have

[Cebu_4_2]

Floyd and Violet had been given hospice care in the last weeks of their lives, and with the end near, family members pushed their beds together, Scharton said.

Hospice is a death squad in a way. "to make them comfortable" with morphine usually. I do wonder if under drugs like that if when near death if they still have the DMT experience and if not, does that mean their passage to the afterlife is cancelled? My mother went out like this and I always have wondered.