NORTH PORT – Ruth Swift and Ted Weaver first achieved in the summer time of 1943 at a vacation resort on the coastal peninsula of Prouts Neck, Maine.
He was a bellboy and elevator operator and she worked in the article office environment. They have been involving their junior and senior many years in higher university.
“The lodge would send out him out to get the mail each and every day for the resort inhabitants,” Ruth said. “He realized I labored in the write-up place of work so he would send out me postcards. He termed me the publish mistress.”
The teens would devote their free days exploring the shorelines in New England.
“It was all through the war, so we traveled in all places by bicycle,” Ruth claimed. “There was not considerably else to do.”
Soon after a summer romance, they went their different ways.
Both married other men and women and had families, but they knew of every single other’s whereabouts by a mutual pal.
“I located out that Ted was going to his 50th reunion in Maine in 2001, and I wrote him a letter and questioned him to visit me,” Ruth reported. “He finished up driving from Arizona to Florida to decide on me up and take me with him to the reunion.”
Ruth’s husband of 50 several years experienced died in 1999, and memories of Ted started off to area.
“I knew he was handling an RV park in Arizona at the time, and when we talked he reported he required to shift to Florida.”
Together, which is just what they did.
Ruth and Ted are living in The Springs at South Biscayne in North Port in which they have their personal apartment.
Prior to relocating to The Springs, Ruth was a longtime resident of Harbor Cove in North Port — considering that 1987 — and she nonetheless has several good friends there.
The two Ruth and Ted experienced COVID-19 in October, and equally have recovered well. Ted spent 10 days in the clinic. Ruth’s signs or symptoms were being moderate.
“He obtained a blood transfusion and that fixed him.”
They have each been vaccinated.
Ruth has three sons and a daughter, Betty, who life in Harbor Cove with her spouse, David, all through the winter months. Ted had four small children, all have died.
Betty had a picture of her mother and father on the beach in Maine created into a woven coverlet for the couple.
“It came out excellent for currently being such an old photograph,” she stated. “They hold it on their bed.”
Ruth’s son, George, the youngest, is a mechanic who lives in California. One particular of his consumers is comedian and automobile enthusiast Jay Leno.
“George is Jay Leno’s head mechanic in Burbank at Jay Leno’s Huge Dog Garage,” Betty said. “My brother Andy (who lives in Maine) does some function for him from time to time, as he is a fire engine restorer. Steve, the oldest, is a jewelry wholesaler. Jay known as her on her birthday (Jan. 8) and now she’s a massive celebrity about The Springs simply because she instructed a nurse that he named. Information like that receives all around speedy.”
Ruth a short while ago turned 94 and Ted is 93.
Each and every week, Ruth and Ted connect with Betty and David to sing “the Friday tune” — a tune they created up jointly — around the telephone.
“Ted likes to sing foolish tunes with my mother,” Betty reported. “It really is sweet.”
She’s experienced to train some new technologies to her mom thanks to the pandemic.
“About the past handful of months, we have been speaking a great deal by way of Alexa,” Betty explained.