75 years of marriage

It was the fall of 1945. Jack Roe had returned to Iowa City to attend graduate school after serving in the U.S. Navy in World War II.

One day while riding in the car with a friend, a lovely lady who was walking down the street caught his eye.

'I took one look at her and said, ‘Now there's a girl I want to date' and I waved to her,” Jack said.

As luck would have it, his friend in the car knew the lady.

'It was love at first sight, so to speak,” Jack said.

The lady's name was Nona, and she, too, had returned to Iowa City after working at a Red Cross facility in Bethesda, Md., during the war.

'I told my friend who knew Nona that I wanted to meet her,” Jack said. 'He arranged a date. I think we dated every night except one or two.

'She had to go out one night and tell her old boyfriend that she couldn't see him anymore.”

Nona said they were not a couple of kids when they met.

'We were both older,” Nona said. 'We both had come back to Iowa City to start a new life from being gone.”

For the next three months, they were together practically every night until they were married on Jan. 2, 1946.

The couple has traveled the world together.

They spent two years in Germany while Jack, now a practicing orthodontist, worked at a dental clinic there.

They settled in Santa Rosa, Calif., where Jack had a practice for more than 30 years.

About 20 years ago, the couple decided to return to Iowa.

After 75 years, Jack and Nona are still together, now living at SunnyBrook Assisted Living in Mt. Pleasant.

'We were very much in love, and we're still very much in love,” Nona said.

Their 75th anniversary was Saturday.

'I don't know how much celebration we're going to have,” Nona said. 'We can't have anybody in, and we can't go out.”

The staff at SunnyBrook put on a small celebration for them on New Year's Eve.

They built a balloon arch as a reminder of Jack and Nona's St. Louis honeymoon.

Looking back, Jack - now 99 - and Nona - now 102 - offered their secret to a long, happy marriage.

'We just get along almost 100 percent,” Nona said. 'There's only one thing we disagree on, and that's temperature. I'm always cold, and he's always warm. I push the thermostat up, and he pushes the thermostat down.

'For all the years we've lived together, temperature has been the one thing we disagree on. We laugh about it. I have blankets I put on at night. Actually, we just mix very well.”

With a laugh, Jack added, 'I just give in. That's all.”

After all these years, they are still looking out for each other.

'Jack and I take care of ourselves almost 100 percent of the time,” Nona said. 'We just help each other, and we're used to each other. We're really doing very well for the age we are.”

The couple still is as happy as ever.

'We know our time is getting short at 102 and 99,” Nona said. 'We've been very happy, and when you're very happy, it's easy.”