George and Norma Carpenter are among the longest-married couples in the world. Josh Newhook | Collegian

George and Norma Carpenter of Allen, Michigan, have been married for 80 years. The Carpenters are among the oldest couples alive today.

George is 99 and Norma is 98. George says he still works five hours a day at Carpenter’s Greenhouse & Produce, owned by his son Dwight, in Allen.

“We are pretty healthy,” said Norma, who worked at the greenhouse until recently. “God has given us grace and blessed us with long life.”

George said he has gained a new appreciation for his wife through doing more of the household chores, like cooking and washing the dishes, which she did all the years he was working. Norma said she appreciates this.

“I need her and she needs me,” George said. “We were too busy early on, but we spend a lot of time together now.”

A couple in North Carolina owns the Guinness World Record for the longest marriage, at 86 years and 290 days. While the list of longest marriages is often disputed, the Carpenters are at 46th of all-time and 10th active in the world, according to Wikipedia’s verified marriages. In another year, they could move up to 32nd of all time, and 23rd of all time in the U.S.

Rep. Tim Wahlberg, R-MI, who knows the couple personally, honored their 80th anniversary on Feb. 2 in Congress.

“With over 100 descendants, the Carpenters have left a tremendous mark on the community and beyond,” Wahlberg said. “I would like to recognize this remarkable couple and congratulate them as they celebrate their extraordinary milestone.”

George and Norma met at church in Wayne, Michigan, in 1942 when George was a senior and Norma was a junior in high school.

“She was sitting behind me and she got a hold of my arm. I had been dating another girl who I didn’t really care for,” George said. “Norma here worked out pretty good for me.”

Norma laughed.

“After 80 years, what else could he say?” she said.

After dating for about a year, George was drafted by the military and had three weeks until he had to report for service. This is when George and Norma, 18 and 17 respectively, decided they should get married in February 1943.

“We eloped,” George said. “I talked her into running away with me.”

George and Norma went to Indiana because the laws allowed them to apply for a license and get married on the same day, whereas Michigan required a three-day waiting period. George got his aunt and uncle to stand in as mother and father for them on a Saturday.

“My uncle lived in Ohio, and I had bought a couple of pigs at an auction a couple of weeks earlier. I told everyone we were going down to pick up those butchered pigs,” George said. “It was a lie and an excuse.”

“But God blessed us anyway, as you can see,” Norma added.

They then spent a week in Atlanta for their honeymoon and called home once they were there, Norma said.

George and Norma said they didn’t want to have a big wedding.

“We didn’t agree with that,” she said.

Norma spent the next two years moving around with George, who trained to be a pilot that would take fly-by pictures of the bomb damage in Japan during the final days of World War II.

Since George had experience as a rivet repairman on airplanes after high school, the government put him in the Air Force, moving him from basic training in Clearwater, Florida, to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to Chattanooga, Tennessee. He finally began flight training with Stinson planes in Santa Ana, California, he said.

Meanwhile, Norma worked at Ford Motor Company with her dad in Ypsilanti, helping to build airplanes and cars for military use. Later, she helped wash planes for the military in California, where she reunited with George.

The couple said these were good times.

“We were so busy that we weren’t worried about the battles,” Norma said.

But George’s entry into battle was constantly delayed due to health issues and extending his training to dual-engine aircraft. George said this was God’s work in protecting him.

“That was the act of the Lord,” he said. “He didn’t want me to get into the battle.”

On their way to the last stage of training in South Dakota, the couple found a surprise in Kansas City.

“The place was just loaded with people. The guys were throwing their girlfriends up in the air and celebrating. We didn’t know what was going on,” he said. “We got off the train, and they said the war was over.”

After George and Norma visited the Black Hills of South Dakota, the Air Force sent George to Illinois to decommission him.

Once he was out of the military, George opted out of college and bought a 217-acre farm for $8,000 in Ohio, not far from his father’s farm.

“In those days they gave land away,” he said.

George discovered he wasn’t good at farming, which he called the hardest part of his life. He couldn’t make a living, so he got two milk routes to help support his growing family, which now included five of the couple’s six children.

In 1953, George moved back to Michigan and eventually worked his way into a position for Ford as a foreman of machine repair, where he remained until he retired at 55 years old with early retirement pay in 1980.

George said it was hard adjusting to a good-paying job, but Norma was kind.

“She was so busy she didn’t have time to get mad at me,” he said.

She raised the kids at home and worked part-time in a kitchen as well.

George and Norma agreed that consulting before buying things has been important to their happiness.

“We talked to each other before we bought things,” he said. “We’ve had very little trouble getting along.”

Norma said they raised their children to be wise with their finances too.

“We taught them to be very frugal,” Norma said. “When they bought something, it would have to be on sale. We would never be able to buy a farm if we didn’t save.”

They also taught them to keep their faith, with George becoming a deacon at their local church and Norma teaching Sunday school.

“It’s the number one thing in our life,” George said. “You got to set an example; you can’t send them. You have to live the way you want them to.”

In 1980, George purchased a farm in Allen, Michigan, as an investment for one of his sons. He said U.S. 12 is much busier nowadays than it was when he first moved to the area.

“It was nice and quiet at the time we came out here 40 years ago,” he said. “It’s changed. A lot of trucks go by here instead of using I-94.”

Pastor Rob Stewart of Countryside Bible Church in Jonesville, where the Carpenters have attended since 1982, said praising the Lord defines George’s and Norma’s lives.

“When I think of the Carpenters, I think of Psalm 136, which says, ‘Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever,’” Stewart said. “They give thanks in all circumstances, they pray faithfully, and their heart is to see others come to know the Lord Jesus.”

Stewart said it is a gift to have them as a part of the church and his family’s life.

“The Lord has truly blessed them to be able to be a witness to and taste of the goodness of how their life together has impacted the generations who have come after them,” he said.

The Carpenters’ son Dwight said there is only one answer to the secret of such a long marriage: that both of them are living for Christ.

“They have such a deep love for Jesus and want to serve him. In doing so, they put him on the throne instead of themselves,” he said. “When they did that, they were able to forgive each other. It was not that they didn’t do things wrong, but they were willing to put the other person first instead of themselves.”

Dwight said their committed faith has been fruitful as all of their children are born-again Christians who serve the Lord.

“I’m quite sure that we would not be as well-off and steady in the Christian faith,” he said, “if it hadn’t been for their testimony and witness.”