They celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary by taking a cruise with
a group of family and friends.
From the Lake Wales (FL) News:
A truly happy, and extraordinary, anniversary
Photo by CJ Newton Happy Anniversary Gladys and Robert Van Gundy. TheL ake Wales couple has been married 72 years. Today.
By CJ NEWTON
Staff Writer
Published: Saturday, September 5, 2009 10:31 AM EDT
Where were you Sept. 3, 1945? The day the war ended. Don’t know?Robert V an Gundy knows where he was. At the controls of a B-29preparing to tak e off from Castle Air Force Base in California:Headed for the South Pa cific.
His radio barked at him: “They called me back,” he said this week.“The y took away the assignment.” The war was over.
Van Gundy, 94, happily married and about to celebrate a weddingannive rsary, seems to enjoy talking about his life and his wife:About Gladys . They have, after all, been together a long time. Today,in fact, is t heir wedding anniversary. Their 72nd.
Seventy-two years of happily married (more or less).
What’s the secret? What’s required to maintain a relationship forso lo ng?
She says compromise is the key. “It’s a give-and-take proposition,” she s aid, adding there’s a reason today’s divorce rate is sohigh: “Young pe ople can’t handle that give-and-take. If theydon’t get what they want, t hey get a divorce.
“Somebody has to give, and sometimes it’s 80-20.”
Robert has the short version: “Never go to bed mad,” he says tothe lau ghter of the two women in the room.
His daughter, Mitzi Rauth, now her parents’ caretaker, has aquestion f or him: “Is that why you slept on the couch somenights?”
Robert, who lost much of his hearing in the war, continues withoutansw ering. “We get everything solved. We don’t put off anythingthat we wan t to solve.”
After some 37 years in military service, the two moved around thecount ry as Robert worked as an insurance adjuster before coming toFlorida t o stay.
The war years were tough, both say. His salary wasn’t enough tosupport h er and their son. And government subsistence didn’t helpmuch. She took a j ob at JCPenney so she had money to travel to seeher husband – if his a ssignment was in the U.S. – and maybe buy apresent or two.
Neither can say who was more surprised when her husband showed up,shop ping in the store.
Not long after Jerry was born, Robert decided to get Gladys out of theh ouse. Get some air.
“I drove us out to the airport. I said ‘Let’s take a ride.’She said ‘ No, I don’t want to take a ride.’
He told her he’d be back in a few minutes.
“I went over and got to nosing around this airplane. I got in it,start ed it and started taxiing around. She says ‘What are youdoing?’ I said ‘ Come on; take a ride with me.’
“She says ‘I won’t do that.’ So I just took off. She says‘Oh My God! L ook at that.’ She didn’t know I’d learned tofly.”
Gladys doesn’t seem to find this story quite as funny as doesRobert. P erhaps a trifle less cheerfully, she says “He took hisflying instructi on unbeknownst to me.”
“She was unhappy with me!” says Robert.
“Yeah, she says. “We had a brand-new baby in that bassinet in theback s eat of the car. I did not know that he had even learned to fly.When he l anded I was – I was – I was shaking. I thought hedidn’t really know ho w to do it. The wings fluttered a little and Ithought ...”
Gladys said she and Robert never flew together. “Number one, I havethe t wo children and I thought ‘that’s enough, Daddy;’somebody’s got to be w ith the kids. If something were to happenwhile he was piloting that pl ane, that would have taken our lives, wewould have orphaned our childr en. I felt as though I better keep mytwo feet on the grade.”
She has flown on commercial airlines, she said.
He tells “narrow escape” stories by the pound. “One time we...” “I rem ember in Denver ...” “The landing gear ...”“My wing was on fire ...”
And they’re wonderful stories. All true and exciting.
Flight school, hunting submarines, eating in the mess hall.
He was in Denver – Flight School – learning to fly the B-29, afour-eng ine heavy bomber. Gladys would come sit at the end of therunway, watch h im take off then leave, knowing how long before he’dbe back. He’d alre ady learned to take off and land by himself, nomore instructor. He was a bout 27 years old.
Rolling down the runway, past the point of no return, the radiosquawks : YOUR WING IS ON FIRE; YOUR WING IS ON FIRE ...
“I’m taking off right in downtown Denver and there’s only 500foot left ,” he said. He told the tower to “get all thoseairplanes off the runwa y and move ‘em away from the grass ... Idon’t know where I’m goin when I c ome back.”
He’s at the point on the runway where he’s got no choice but tocontinu e the takeoff. He plans to lift off and come right back aroundto land.
“I’m only fence high,” he says. “I had the bell ringing. Itold the cre w ‘When this bell quits ringing, that means one thing:I AM GONE! I wan t you guys to bail out of here the minute you thinkyou can. The minute I c an get out of this seat, I’m gonna jump outof this thing and let it go .’” He managed the plane around andlined up on the runway.
“I landed it and it went off the runway. The minute I hit the grass,I a bandoned it. I went out through the hole.
“All I had was grass burns on my shoulder, where I hit theground.”
Gladys had left the base and couldn’t get back in. “Theywouldn’t let h er on the base: They closed it. They didn’t knowwhat had happened out t here.”
Nobody knew whether the aircrew had escaped the plane: “It wasburning, ” Robert says.
The “meat wagon” showed up and wanted to take him in forexamination. “ I looked like a wet chicken, I guess,” he said.“But I wanted to walk i n. I tried to stand up and I couldn’t. Myknees wouldn’t hold me up.” T he ambulance crew told him “Youare hurt,” Robert said. “I said ‘I’m no t hurt: My knees justwon’t hold me.’ They got me in the ambulance, too k me over thereand gave me a shot of whiskey.” None of the crew was in jured onthis trip. The airplane, however, “was Section 8,” he said. “They used it for parts.
“I had some narrow escapes ...”
Now he loves woodworking.
“I should have patented that,” he says of a smallfolding/interlocking t able he invented. He started out as a childmaking his own baseball bat s. “Out of ash,” he says.
He’s made “more than 50 of those little tables,” he says. He hasa comp lete wood shop, “except for a planer.” Gladys reminds himthat he hasn’ t made any tables lately. But that doesn’t meanhe’s not going to make m ore.
“When I get up moving around again,” he says, “I’ll make somemore. I r eally like woodwork.”
Now it’s raining. Hard.
Robert is describing the qualities of ash as Gladys remarks “We havebe en blessed. I know we’ve been blessed. There aren’t too manycouples ca n remain together, both of them alive, able to converse.It’s unreal to m e that we’ve been together 72 years.
“I’m so grateful: God has been so good to us.
“We raised two children and we have six grandchildren, all marriedbut o ne.”
