Husband, Wife Together for 63 Years Die Hours Apart

(Newser) - After meeting in high school, Jerry and Edith Dunn spent most of their time together, and had been together 63 years. And the Utah couple was together in death, too; just hours after Jerry died in his sleep Thursday, Edith passed away.

"Everyone thought Mom would be first to die, but I knew Dad would go first because he wouldn't want her to be afraid," the couple's son tells the Deseret News. "Dad always put everybody else first, but Mom was his top priority." Jerry promised Edith not to put her in a nursing home, and they stayed in the house where they raised their family until the end.

Jerry had suffered a fall Tuesday, but he still tidied up the house, put money in the tithing envelope, and made sure the trash would be taken out for the widow next-door on Wednesday night before he went to bed. After he died, his wife, who suffered dementia and diabetes, seemed agitated before her own passing, says their daughter. "They couldn't be separated."

The Dunns, who were both born in 1931 and had seven grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren, were buried next to each other Friday, KSL reports. "They had such a commitment to each other," says their daughter. "It was not a real romantic, flowery type of story, but a subtle, sweet kind of story and that's just how they were."

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