February 26, 2015 (Monroe, NC) ─ Valentine’s Day is a holiday for lovers – whether they be young couples just beginning to date, newlyweds enjoying the freshness of marriage, or like the Vargases, a couple at Woodridge Assisted Living and Memory Care, whose marriage has withstood the test of time!

Growing up in Princeton, West Virginia, Eloise remembers her brother’s friend Ted Vargas coming to play the piano.

“He would pay more attention to me than he did the piano,” she said.

Ted admits, he thought Eloise was a nice looking girl. Eloise said she thought Ted was rude because he wouldn’t stop staring at her. One day after school when she was 16 and he was 19, while the two were on Eloise’s front porch, Ted proposed.

The couple then headed down to the local jewelry store to pick out a ring, while the local school kids followed them, spying on them through the window.

Married in a Baptist church in Princeton, West Virginia, the Vargases had three children, all named after the ships Ted sailed as a merchant marine. They now have five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Eloise stayed home to raise the children and later worked for the school system. Ted worked in The Virginia Shops until they moved to Sparrows Point, Maryland where he took a job in the Bethlehem Steel Mill. During layoffs, he would return to sea as a merchant marine.

Residents of Woodridge, a DePaul Senior Living Community since August 2014, the Vargases said the trick to being married for 65 years is to be thoughtful and to agree to disagree.

“You will get angry with each other, but you have to get through it,” said Eloise.

“You have to make allowances for one another’s faults and learn each other’s likes and dislikes,” said Ted.

For more information about Woodridge, please contact Administrator Janis Carroll at (704) 225-0011 or visit us on Facebook.