San Diego Couple’s Final Wished Fulfilled After 75 Years of Marriage

According to their children, Jeannette and Alexander Toczko had a life long love affair.

So it was only fitting that after nearly 75 years of marriage, they died within a day of each other, fulfilling their final wish.

They were both born in Stamford, Connecticut, in 1919. 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-Cushmantold ABC affiliate KGTV in San Diego.

Jeannette, 96, and Alexander, 95, married in 1940.

They moved to San Diego in the early 1970s where Alexander found 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 said.

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 said.

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.