WESTLAKE, Ohio — After seven decades of Valentine’s Days, a Northeast Ohio couple says there’s no real secret to a lasting love. In their case, Marty and Jean Linn found a common interest was key to a successful marriage.
“Camping really kept us together because we both liked to do it. He did all the driving and I did the maps and figured out what the meals were going to be,” said Jean Linn, 92.
In retirement, the couple traveled often in an RV. When their son was a child, they would pack up the family and a small pop-up camper for shorter trips during Marty’s breaks from work as a Cleveland firefighter.
“There was a bed on each side and a canvas thrown over the top and we went to Canada and every place in that,” recalled Marty Linn, 94.
These days, the pace of life is slower than in years past. The Linns recently moved into an assisted living community at Brookdale Westlake Village after decades in their Rocky River home. Several years into their nineties, the memories of their lifetime together aren’t as clear as they once were.
“What about Marty caught your eye the first time?” we asked Jean.
She laughed, “I don’t remember that.”
It was more than three-quarters of a century ago now when a young Marty shyly asked out the girl living down the street.
“I think he overslept and didn’t pick me up on time,” Jean teased.
She said the couple has learned to compromise and give each other grace.
“We got along, that’s all I can say,” she said. “I know sometimes he took over and I said, ‘OK we’ll do it.”
Their relationship also required patience when Marty served at U.S. Army bases around the country for several years.
“[I was in] Alabama and Maryland,” Marty said.
They would keep in touch through occasional visits and handwritten letters.
“I told him what was going on at home and he would tell me what he was doing in the army,” Jean explained.
They dated for two more years after Marty left the service before he finally proposed marriage.
We asked Jean, “How did Marty ask you to marry him?”
“I don’t know,” she responded. “It was a matter of fact that it was going to happen.”
She said they weathered many things with a sense of humor, like a mishap during their 1953 wedding celebration.
“We had a band but they didn’t show up,” she laughed. “So we had a relative that had an accordion and he carried it around in the trunk in his car. So here he was up on the stage playing this accordion all by himself.”
Marty’s hearing has faded over the years, and his caregivers say he is living with dementia, but he fondly remembers the different campers the couple used over the years. He laughed when asked what advice he’d impart for a lasting marriage.
“It’s hard to say,” he said. “There’s good and bad days.”
On September 5, 2024, the couple will mark 71 years of marriage.
