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In Celebration of Couples: Happy Valentines Day

photo provided Celebrating 44 Years of Marriage: Larney & Ann McGrath

Tuesday February 9, 2010

By Cookie Steponaitis

    Tis the Valentine’s Day season and all the trappings are out in the stores. There is candy, cards, flowers, and a dissaying array of stuffed animals of all shapes and sizes. You can send a bear, send an email or even secretly let your Valentine know you are thinking of them. While these traditions are a wonderful part of this worldwide holiday, they sometimes put a screen in front of the real issue at the heart of the celebration, the expression of love. The Addison County community is full of couples who have celebrated countless Valentine’s Days together and in doing so hold up as rock solid demonstrations that love goes deeper, further and longer than a rembrance or an evening out. In honor of all of those couples, the Valley Voice salutes Valentine’s Day and shares the story of one special couple.

     Larney and Ann McGrath met at Wallingford High School and  rode together on the only school bus. Ann was a seventh grader and Larney was a senior. Larney was awfully fond of picking on Ann and she would blush. Larney was already prepapring for his future plans and worked as a mechanic at night at a local service station that was owned by Ann’s father. Ann remarked, “ I chased Larney right into the Air Force, where we both spent 30 years; 10 active duty, 10 in reserve duty and 10 in the guard. I knew right away that he was special.”  

     Ann and Larney were separated for five years until Larney came home in 1965 for his mother’s graduation. He happened to stop in at the high school to talk with some of his former teachers and caught a glimpse of Ann in the halls. Larney asked for a date and after checking with her parents, the pair was allowed to date within guidelines. During the six weeks that Larney was home on leave, the two were inseperable and cemented the beginnings of a relationship that would span three continents and over thirty years.

      Larney had a surprise for Ann when he came home again in 1966.  While he was in Germany he had written her parents and had asked permission to marry her. He shared, “Twenty three days after Ann turned 18, which was two weeks after I got home, on January 22, 1966 we were married. I hadn’t asked the Air Force for permission, so I had to answer some questions with my commanding officers. I was stationed at Kessler AFB in Mississippi and left to return to duty on Febrary 2nd. Ann could not follow me until April.”

      Critical to their marriage from the start and continuing to this day is their faith in God and in each other.  Within months of their being together on base Larney was again at a moments notice shipped off to Vietnam for his third tour of duty. At twenty years old, Ann remembers vividly the separation, the isolation and the worries of a young wife who was on her own. She shares, “As a spouse of military personnel we were not offered the support they have today, being only 20 years old I didn’t understand what was going on.  It was a very lonely time I moved back to Vermont and got a job at King’s Department Store, and counted the months one day at a time. If it had not been our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ I don’t think we would have made it. So I would not be alone for Christmas Larney volunteered to be the courier for 18 servicemen that had been killed in the Mead River Operation.  We got to spend three weeks together and then he left again. Each time was worse than the last, but I put my faith in him and in God that he would return home.”

      When the young couple began thinking about starting a family they had no vision of the difficulties and challenges that lay ahead. Ann, after suffering several miscarriages gave birth to a son who was very premature and only survived for one day.  Two years later on Election Day they were blessed with twin sons. Although Ann had to spend six months in bed prior to the delivery, she would get up once a day just to have a shower. Larney would take care of all household chores and prepared meals before he left for work. Working together through the rough times, the family stayed strong and grew in faith and love as their military life took them from base to base. Over the forty-four plus years of their marriage, Ann and Larney have packed up and moved over twenty-five times. While still skilled at moving a household across the country, they have now settled in Vergennes and call it their permanent home.     

     “In 2002 our lives, changed forever,” shared Ann. “In a regular mammogram they found a lump, a few days later I was in the hospital having a total mastectomy, after that it was 6 months of chemo, 28 course of radiation and then the pill for 7 years.  Then in October 2009 they found that the cancer cells had reformed in my stomach and intestine.  The exact time line I do not know, it is what it is, I spend every day thanking God for that day and taking it one day at a time.  I have had a wonderful marriage to an exceptional man who is there for my every need and a lot of others too! And now as we go to the autumn of our lives we treasure every moment together. Valentines Day to us is every day. You see we love and express our love to each other every day of the year.  Larney is with me for every test, every scan, every x-ray and every doctor’s appointment; he is there for laughter and the tears.”

      While the Valley Voice salutes the McGraths for their devotion and their strength as a married couple, they want all of us to take away from this Valentine’s Day story that the word commitment is central to the lives of this wonderful couple. In times of uncertainty, what is certain is that for Ann and Larney, their marriage, their journey and their family is based on love, faith and unwavering belief in each other. Happy Valentine’s Day to all and to those couples out there who have stood the test of time and life facing challenges together. Love truly is a splendid thing!

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