“Love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage. It’s an institute you can’t disparage.”
Frank Sinatra first sang these Sammy Cahn lyrics in the 1955 television production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town.
Here, in Tidewater, several couples celebrating special anniversaries speak to the foundation of their marriage and the many years they have shared together. From first encounters to travels to exotic lands, these husbands and wives have stayed the course and happily share with Jewish News how they navigate married life
Beverly and Jack Fox
70th anniversary
Best friends for more than 70 years, when Beverly and Jack Fox’s children were younger and dating, they asked their dad how they would know if someone were marriage material. He suggested imagining the person as the same sex – would that person be a best friend?
“Best friends – it’s a long-lasting relationship,” Jack Fox says.
The couple met in Washington, D.C. when Fox was in the Army, stationed in Northern Virginia, and Beverly was in a college program and working at the Hecht Company. Fox was later stationed in New Mexico, and the two married there with only one other couple attending. It was in El Paso, Texas, that their daughter was born. After his service, Fox completed his engineering degree at Lehigh University (which also awarded Beverly a “Putting Hubby Through” degree, says Fox), and the couple moved back to his native Baltimore, where their two sons were born.
Transferred for a job to Cary, N.C., after just a couple of years, Fox decided to strike out on his own and purchased Quality Baking Company, later named Fox Quality Baking Company, in Emporia, Va. At 51 years old, Fox sold the business that he had grown from six employees to 400, and he and Beverly retired to Virginia Beach.
The couple shares a love of adventure and have travelled the world. As a pilot for 60 years (Fox sold his twin-engine plane six months ago), the couple have flown to Alaska, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. “One hot summer in Virginia Beach, I told Beverly to get in the plane and we’d fly north until we hit 74 degrees,” he says.
Twice, they have flown commercial airlines to Australia, where they then picked up a plane and flew themselves across the country. Beverly, who has also taken flight training, “doesn’t like landing,” Fox laughs.
The Foxes also have participated in Angel Flight, an organization of pilots who volunteer their time, aircraft, and expenses to fly those in need (mostly cancer patients) for medical treatment. According to Fox, these recipients cannot afford the cost of transportation; therefore, members of Angel Flight pick them up at their hometown airport and fly them to their treatment destination.
The Foxes have also flown wounded military veterans who are recovering in places such as Walter Reed Hospital, to visit their homes and families while they recuperate, since the government does not cover these costs. “Over the years, we have loved meeting and helping these folks with our wonderful Beechcraft Baron airplane,” Fox says.
When not in the air or on land, the Foxes are boating and fishing, both in Norfolk and from their home in Boca Raton, Fla., which they have owned for 35 years. By boat, they have travelled to the Bahamas and twice from Norfolk to Florida. Since moving from their home in Virginia Beach to Harbor’s Edge in Norfolk, they have joined Norfolk Yacht and Country Club, partly, they say, to dock their 32-foot boat.
The move to Norfolk has also allowed them to discover the city, the museums, and the entertainment, such as Chrysler Hall. They say that Glass Light and Norfolk Yacht are two of their favorite dining spots. Most of their family live nearby, including three children, four of their five grandchildren, and one great grandchild.
Their first 70th anniversary celebration was a cocktail dinner party held in Florida. Another with family and friends will follow once they return to Norfolk. “Beverly celebrated our actual anniversary on February 4, recovering in the hospital from her second hip replacement. She’s doing well, thankfully,” Fox adds.
Linda and Jonathan Longman
45th anniversary
Linda and Jonathan Longman met, of all places, at a Jewish singles Hanukkah party, in December 1978. If not for this chance meeting, says Linda Longman, “our paths would probably never have crossed.”
They talked, discovered that they were both originally from Portsmouth, knew of each other’s families, but did not know each other. “We talked the very next day on the phone and began dating,” says Longman. “It wasn’t long before we had a strong connection, and we married on March 29, 1980.
The couple did not have any children together, but Linda had two teenage daughters and Jonathan had one son. “We are now the proud grandparents of three girls and one boy. Hopefully we’ll get to be great grandparents one day!” she says.
They are both very active in Temple Israel, going to Shabbat services each week and participating in daily Minyans on Zoom. Jonathan served as president of Temple Israel from 2017 through 2020.
They are also involved in Brith Sholom and enjoy spending time with family and friends. “We especially love being together with family for the Jewish holidays,” says Longman.
“We are truly best friends and love being together at home reading the newspaper, watching the news and YouTube videos on TV, and watching and competing with each other on Jeopardy,” says Longman. In addition, she says they like going out and shopping together.
Their milestone anniversary falls on Shabbat, March 29. Linda will read the Torah, Jonathan will have an Aliyah, and they will sponsor the Kiddush luncheon “as we celebrate our anniversary with our Temple Israel family,” she says.
Ellen and Bill Wagner
45th anniversary
Meeting at Stonybrook University, Ellen and Bill Wagner are originally from New York. They lived in Cincinnati, Ohio for five years and then for 24 years in Chadds Ford, Pa., which is outside of Philadelphia and just north of Delaware. There, the couple raised their three children.
“We moved to Virginia Beach six years ago, when Bill retired, to be near our daughter Amy, son-in-law Eliot, and two grandchildren, Avi and Dani Weinstein,” says Ellen Wagner. “Our two sons, Greg and Michael, live in Connecticut. Greg and his wife, Deanna, have two children, Charlotte and Ryan. Greg and Michael are physicians.”
With their children’s varying schedules, they all manage to get together for Thanksgiving and at least once during the summer, according to Wagner.
Always involved in their communities, the Wagners’ move to Tidewater meant the arrival of two active volunteers. Having served on the board of directors of the Woman of Reform Judaism for many years, Ellen is now involved in the sisterhood at Ohef Sholom Temple, serves on the board of Jewish Family Service and is part of the Women’s Philanthropy Committee. “I have been a Lion of Judah for many years,” she says. Bill served as president of the Jewish Federation of Delaware. In Tidewater, he continues to serve on committees at Ohef Sholom Temple and previously was a member of the board of Beth Sholom Village.
The Wagners say they enjoy traveling and collecting art. “Our favorite destinations have been Iceland, China, England, Italy, Greece, and the Netherlands to name a few. We have future travel plans to celebrate our 45th anniversary and Bill’s 70th Birthday.”
Locally, they go to the theater and enjoy dining out together. “We might do our own thing during the day, but we have breakfast and dinner together each day,” says Wagner.
“The key to a long marriage, in our opinion,” she says, “is to always communicate and listen to one another.”
Debi and Rick Yarow
20th anniversary
After getting to know each other on a popular dating app, Debi and Rick Yarow met in person. “We were both going through divorces and had two young children. We knew it would be a challenge to start over and find partners at work, and neither of us was interested in, or had any energy for, bar hopping,” says Debi Yarow. “However, we found great success matching our personalities, lifestyles, and interests with the sites that were so new to us back in the early 2000s.”
Blending families, she says, was tricky, but living in the same neighborhood made it much easier. The couple first made sure that Ben and Hannah (Rick’s kids) and Gracie and Faith (Debi’s children) were on the same visitation schedule, so that they had all four kids together every Thursday and every other weekend. “All the kids drove to Sunday school and Hebrew school together and we went to shul and celebrated Shabbat as a family at least twice a month. We made a great deal of effort to celebrate other Jewish holidays together, and we included all four children on our journey to becoming more observant,” says Yarow.
The last time the family was all together was at Ben’s wedding. “With Hannah in Israel, Gracie and Faith in Ohio, and Ben busy with his wife, Allie, and daughter, Lennon, in Arlington, getting everyone under the same roof does pose some challenges,” admits Yarow.
Backgammon enthusiasts, the Yarrows even have their own custom board. “We play almost every night and are quite competitive: while we don’t make any bets, Rick would be broke, if we did,” says Yarow. They also love to bike, hike trails, and watch good sci-fi shows or movies together. “We enjoy taking classes at Chabad on Sundays and socializing with an Israeli group of friends that meets monthly for a potluck.”
This past summer, they “took a dreamy vacation to California,” says Yarow. “We were invited to a 60th birthday party for Rick’s cousin, and I felt it was silly to go across the country and not take in a good portion of the coast. Living out one of Rick’s boyhood dreams, we rented a cherry red Mustang convertible and began our journey in San Francisco. We worked our way over to Napa, catching up with a few college friends I hadn’t seen since we were in our 20s. On our way to Orange County, we visited Big Sur, saw the magnificent Redwoods, toured Carmel, drove the coast, hiked along the cliffs of the Pacific, and so much more. I kept asking Rick if we could stay! Of course, our favorite destination, other than visiting our children and granddaughter, is Israel.”
Yarow says that it’s just been several weeks since she retired, but already, “we can’t imagine a life where I go back to work. While teaching is rewarding and important, it is also the kind of job that allows time for little else. Now the two of us are able to travel, learn new things, dive into complicated recipes, and take time to volunteer for organizations and causes for which we are passionate. The world just seems full of possibilities never open to us when I was working seven days a week.”
They admit they never fully understood what people talked about when they raved about being grandparents. “When we visited Ben and Allie for the first time since they had their daughter, we spent the entire day with Lennon, staring at her tiny hands and her gorgeous face, feeding her and holding her,” says Yarow. “At the end of the day, we were walking out of their apartment towards our hotel, and I said to Rick, ‘Ah ha, this is the magic people were talking about! We got to play with her all day, and now we get to go back to the hotel and sleep. They have to stay up all night worrying. We get to have ALL the fun!’ We both just laughed. We had arrived. Parenting is such hard work. You have to say no, be the responsible one, the one to worry about teeth, homework, and ear infections. We earned our wings to say, ‘Yes, of course you can have that. You’re with DD and Grandpa!’”
When it came to choosing a wedding date, the Yarows picked Thanksgiving weekend to make it easier for everyone to travel on a holiday weekend. “To be honest, we have regretted it since and don’t enjoy sharing our special day with a holiday the two of us do not particularly enjoy,” says Yarow. “We have joked about picking a new date, but I think we just have to stick with it. This year, our Hebrew calendar date for our anniversary is November 15, which is a Shabbat. I think we will say the Shehechianu, a blessing for allowing us to reach this milestone in our marriage and sponsor a kiddush to celebrate with our friends and family.”
Marriage, says Yarow, is hard and “loving someone for 20 years involves choosing to love that person every day. Rick and I have had many challenges and difficulties in our 20 years of marriage; blending a family and navigating co-parenting put an extra strain on a new relationship. We had no time to be newlyweds; we were immediately the parents of four young children.”
But determined and hard-working, she says they knew from their previous marriages that it comes with both compromise and sacrifice; it’s a real partnership. However, Yarow says, “marriage can also come with laughter, safety, intimacy, and love.
“Nothing worth having is easy or comes without hard work. People are human and make mistakes; they come with past traumas, baggage, fears, hopes, and stories; a spouse has to be mindful and understanding of the human, the soul they married.”
With all of the challenges, according to Yarow, “as long as you are attracted to each other, share common interests, and have goals together, you can do it. Take relationship classes together, read books, learn to communicate effectively, play games, and most of all, keep the fire going.”
