Jack and Harriet Morrison St Louis, Missouri couple together for 65 years die on the same day holding hands at a nursing home following deteriorating health.
A St. Louis, Missouri, couple together for nearly 65 years died on the same day earlier this month while living together in a nursing home. The pair died holding each other’s hand.
The couple, Jack and Harriet Morrison, pushed their beds together so they could hold hands in the St. Louis-area nursing home where they each died on Jan. 11, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
‘I’m sad. But I know they’re at peace and they’re back together,’ Sue Wagener, a niece raised by the couple said.
‘It truly was a love story for the books,’ she added.
Jack, who was 86, died first, while 83-year-old Harriett followed shortly after.
Jack died at 3:34 a.m. Jan. 11, leaving a whimpering Harriet (she was unable to talk, Wagener said), who died at 11:53 p.m. that day after spending the day with relatives by her side.
‘For over 65 years they lived together, laughed together, loved together, and passed away together,’ the couple’s joint obituary read. ‘The perfect ending to the perfect love story.’
Love at first sight on a bus:
The couple met in 1955 when Jack was driving a charter bus and Harriett was a passenger on the bus with her father and his drum and bugle corps.
‘They went to a little diner and never separated from that day on,’ Wagener said.
The couple married less than a year after meeting — and rarely separated from one another for the nearly 65 years they spent together.
They raised Wagener and their two sons while also running V-K Bus Lines.
The couple were admitted to the nursing home about a year ago when Harriet tripped and broke her hip and pelvis.
Jack also suffered a fall that broke his neck, according to Wagener. Their health continued to decline, with Harried developing dementia, and sometimes not knowing her husband. Eventually both of them stopped eating and drinking before soon dying. Nonetheless, each to their very last breaths held hands.