A couple from Parry Sound is celebrating a milestone that very few couples will ever reach.
100-year-old Clem and 95-year-old Millie Mintz are celebrating their 80th anniversary, unofficially making them Canada’s longest-married couple.
They were married in Clem says there is a reason their love has lasted this long.
“First thing is, you have to think of your spouse more than you think of yourself,” he said. “You have to put them first.”
Clem’s younger brother Cecil remembers how the two found love at first sight.
“He said she's mine--keep your hands off,” he chuckled.
The couple had two daughters before Clem left to fight in World War II, where he lost a leg.
After the war, Millie raised the kids and Clem started making wooden prosthetics for war amputees.
The couple lived together until just a few years ago, when they moved into Belvedere Heights Home for the Aged.
“We all love a good love story and when Clem tells it…it's a wonderful love story,” said Belvedere Heights employee Carol Marshall.
Although Millie lives with dementia now, Clem says their lasting love endures.
It’s something he’s reminded of by a keepsake Millie gave him in 1939: a wooden box with a poem written on it.
The poem reads “when the golden sunrise is sailing, and your heart from care is free … of others you are thinking, will you sometimes think of me. Your sweetheart, Mildred.”
