Couples share lasting love on The Murfreesboro Post

Sidebar Ads

Couples share lasting love

Related Articles

Weekend Planner: McFadden students featured in MTSU production

City TV continues bicentennial series with 'Our People'

Commitment to education is no laughing matter

TV series focuses on educators

Our Beginnings

Lunch & learn about Alzheimer's

More Tennesseans Face Hunger Risks

Sheriff 'scans' community to help seniors

AARP TN: Know your SS benefits before retirement

Sheriff kicks off Senior Citizens Awareness Network

View All

By: MICHELLE WILLARD, Post Content Editor

Posted: Sunday, February 14, 2010 7:12 am

Couples share lasting love | Generations, Dalton Stroop, Margaret Stroop, John Hood, Marilyn Hood, Valentine's Day

After he followed her into her dorm, Margaret and Dalton Stroop married June 4, 1954.

St. Valentine’s Day is a day to celebrate love in all forms.

And these days it may seem like there isn’t much to celebrate with around half of all U.S. marriages ending in divorce.

But there are a chosen few that buck the trend, staying married for more than 50 years.

Dalton Stroop met his wife Margaret in the early 1950s when he was working for Middle Tennessee Electric Co-op and she was teaching music at David Lipscomb Elementary.

“We’d met before but hadn’t paid any attention to each other,” Margaret said. But then some mutual friends set them up on a blind date.

After their first date, Dalton dropped her off at her dormitory on Lipcomb’s Nashville campus.

“He followed me in. He wasn’t supposed to do that,” she said. “It impressed me I guess.”

The couple married a year later on June 4, 1954.

John Hood met his wife Marilyn at Central High School, but they didn’t start dating until after graduation, John said. In fact Marilyn doesn’t have a clear memory of when the couple first met.

“I really didn’t (know he was the one) until later on because I was dating somebody else at that time too,” Marilyn explained. “I would say it was several months later because I quit the other guy and you begin to think about things like that.”

John and Marilyn dated for a while before he saw their common interests and they were “very compatible.

“She was the one,” John said. They married Sept. 9, 1951.

But it wasn’t grand gestures or love, necessarily, that have kept these couples together for so long.

Long-lasting relationships aren’t built on something as fleeting as love. They are true partnerships between two people, but it does help if they like each other.

Margaret cited Dalton’s kindness, while Marilyn noted John’s outgoingness as reasons why the wives still like their husbands after 50 years.

“He never meets a stranger and remembers people too and that’s a really good thing about him,” Marilyn said about John.

The men were a little less romantic in their assessments of their wives. And although they were gruff and slightly uncomfortable with talking about their wives, they said the women’s supportiveness and friendliness, as well as the children they had together, were reasons why the marriages lasted.

“She’s been so supportive of anything and everything I’ve done,” John said, noting his years in the Army, working for both Samsonite and MTSU and years in the Tennessee House of Representatives.

“You couldn’t ask for a better person, good wife and great mother,” he added.

John also said their mutual interests, like the Evening Exchange Club, which works with families after children have been abused, have held the couple together over the years.

Even with friendliness, kindness and mutual interests, keeping a relationship going for can be tough.

Margaret said patience is an important trait for keeping a marriage alive and healthy.

“And determining to start with that this is a life partner,” she added. “As far as I’m concerned, I never thought about not staying married. Didn’t have any reason to either.”

Marilyn’s best advice is to “just close your eyes sometimes and keep your mouth shut. …There are times when you want to give up, but I tried to be supportive.”

John said his marriage to Marilyn has been a true partnership. Through all the ups and downs and in betweens, they supported each other and raised a family.

“I just never thought about anything else but that,” Marilyn said.

“When we married, I married for life and you just keep on keeping on.”

Michelle Willard can be reached at 615-869-0816 or at mwillard@murfreesboropost.com

Tagged under Dalton Stroop, Generations, John Hood, Margaret Stroop, Marilyn Hood, Valentine's Day

Member Opinions:

By: acdsrool on 2/14/10
My parents will celebrate their 61st anniversary Tuesday. Now that's an accomplishment!

By: ItsGood on 2/14/10
Both of the outstanding grooms are members of The Murfreesboro Exchange Club, an organization that has core values of Family, Community, Country.

By: acdsrool on 2/15/10
My parents are members of a great organization, too...God's family. Talk about core values!

By: lunchlady1 on 2/15/10
Sounds like acdsrool is a bit angry that the article did not focus on his or her parents! The article can't focus on everyone!

By: acdsrool on 2/15/10
You're so way off base, lunchlady! I'm just proud of my parents and their accomplishment! God has truly blessed them!

By: lunchlady1 on 2/16/10
Sorry if I mistook you, acdsrool- so many negative people get on here and make comments so it was easy to assume you were one of them! My parents are celebrating their 50th anniversary later this year and I could not be prouder of them! Congrats to your parents!

By: mtsumom on 2/16/10
I am proud to say that my parent's will celebrate their 61st anniversary as well in August. When asked one time to share some advice I thought my parent's would give to newlyweds, I said it would have to be Live, Laugh, and Love. Be patient, forgiving, and understanding. Congrats to the couples featured in the article and to all those who are blessed to celebrate any number of years this year.

By: acdsrool on 2/16/10
Congrats to the parents of lunchlady1 and mtsumom...monumental achievements in this day and age! I will offer this bit of advice (if I may be so bold!): Enjoy your parents while you still have them. I have friends who lost their parents way too early and I see how it hurts. I'm blessed to still have both my parents but you never know when God will call them home.