JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Jerry and Dee Gardner were just kids when they met in Iowa.
"One day I was down at the football field and Jerry was down there, well, he must have wanted to get to know me because what did he do? He picked up a snake and chases me with it. So I really didn’t like him for a while," Dee said.
As the old saying goes, "boys pick on the girls they like" Dee decided to give Jerry another chance a few years later.
“I invited him on a hayride and he sang "Lucky in Love" to me and that was it, from that time on I fell in love with him and I was only a freshman.," Dee said.
By 18, Jerry had joined the Navy and Dee was visiting on Christmas vacation.
"I went and I said "We're getting married, I'm not going back. We're getting married," Dee said.
Of course, at the time not many were supportive of the idea.
"We got engaged and everyone was telling us we were too young to get married," Dee said.
Dee says the same phrase people were saying to them, was the same phrase in a popular song at the time.
"The last line in that song is "and then someday they will recall we were not too young at all," Dee said.
Now, here they are on Christmas Eve celebrating their 70th anniversary.
"We've been very compatible. I don't really know if we ever had a big argument. We've had arguments of course but they'd be over in no time," Jerry said.
"There's going to be times that you're going to be very unhappy. Things aren't going to go right but you have to press on through and work it out," Dee said.
Dee says their secret to a long-lasting marriage, giving more than you take.
“You have to be willing at times to give 100% they say marriage is 50/50 well it isn’t. It's sometimes 30/70. You just have to be willing to give 100% at times," Dee said.
If you ask Jerry- “Doing whatever she tells me today do"