The first few years of Valentine's Day gifts are easy. Flowers, chocolates, a sweet or funny card — when love is new, so is everything that goes with it.
But what do you give for your 75th Valentine's Day as a married couple?
Carlyn and Irv Ungar wish each other a happy anniversary.
They were married on Valentine's Day in 1938. Seventy-five years later, they are still married.
Irv is 99; Carlyn turns 99 next month. They are music lovers, theatergoers, devoted members of Temple Sholom in Chicago and happy inhabitants of a sun-drenched condo off Lake Shore Drive.
They live on their own, are in full possession of their highly enjoyable wits and are happy to share the story of their Valentine's Day marriage.
It began casually. They were sophomores at the University of Wisconsin, and Irv's fraternity was planning a party for George Washington's birthday and invited the girls from Carlyn's sorority.
Carlyn didn't have a date. "So at the fraternity, they said, 'That Carlyn girl doesn't have a date. Why don't you ask her?'" Carlyn said. "So he did."
And that, pretty much, was that.
"In those days, once you went out with a guy, you were going steady," Carlyn said.
They were glad to be doing so. They enjoyed each other's company. They were outgoing sorts and liked knowing they had someone to go out with every weekend.
"I don't know," Irv said, looking at Carlyn. "It just became ..."
"It was a habit," Carlyn said. "It felt very natural."
The habit continued to grow for five years, after they graduated and returned to their respective hometowns: Irv to Chicago, where he got a job as an advertising copywriter and Carlyn to Atlanta, where she trained to be a lab technician.
On New Year's weekend of 1937, she was working at a hospital on Staten Island when Irv came to New York to visit.
At some point over the weekend, "We said, why don't we get married?" Carlyn said.
"That was just about it," Irv said. "I don't even remember the details."
There was no dramatic, elaborately planned proposal?
There was not. "We just evolved into thinking, well, maybe we can make a go of it," Carlyn said.
Still, the idea of getting married on Valentine's Day — wasn't that a sweet, romantic notion?
