By Katie Scarvey and Brent Johnson
Salisbury Post
Tammy Corl of Rockwell sent us an intriguing e-mail several weeks ago.
“If my parents (Pete and Nancy Davenport) both live until next Friday, January 25th, and her brothers and sisters do also, all six of them will have been married at least 50 years (and one over 60).
“I do not know if that would be interesting to you or anyone else but I thought it was miraculous!”
Well, we agreed that it was pretty amazing. So we made plans to meet all of the six surviving children of Edna H. Walker and Eric Thomas Walker (three of the original nine children, James, Floyd and Willie are deceased), along with their spouses.
January 25 came and went and everybody was still alive and well, so the six siblings and their spouses gathered in the fellowship hall of their church ó Rockwell United Methodist ó to reminisce a bit about their long marriages.
Nancy Davenportó the baby of the Walker family ó joked that even though everyone is retired, the challenge was making sure none of the 12 had any doctors’ appointments on the specified meeting day.
Between them, the six couples have accumulated 329 years of marriage, by Pete’s calculations.
The couples shared some of the wisdom they’ve gained during more than three centuries of marriage.
Eric and Edna Walker ó whose own marriage was cut short when Eric died, shortly before Nancy was born ó would surely be proud.