Boca Raton couple celebrates nearly 82 years of marriage this Valentine’s Day

By Sooji Nam

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    BOCA RATON, Florida (WPBF) — When Louis Bluefeld was 16 years old, he didn’t know a dinner dance in Downtown Baltimore was where he would meet the love of his life.

“Edith had a date, and I had a date. And I had just gotten my driver’s license. And I begged my father to let me use the car and he didn’t want me to. So, he said, ‘you can get the car after 8 o’clock as if to say no,'” he told WPBF 25 News.

It was 1937, but he remembers it like it was just yesterday.

“I asked her date if he would take me home to get my car. He said ‘yeah!’ Bluefeld said. “So he takes his date, Edith … and I tell my date, ‘I’m going to get my car, I’ll be back.’ And they take me home. And on the way, I got Edith’s phone number. I called her on Tuesday,” the 102-year-old said.

“There were a group of boys. And they go, ‘Which one would you pick?’ I said, ‘That one there.’ And that was that,” Edith Bluefeld, Louis’ wife, said. “I just liked his looks and his smile.”

Their relationship soon blossomed, and Louis Bluefeld’s mother helped him follow his heart.

“My mother said to me, ‘What are your intentions? She’s a very nice girl, nice family. Are you going to marry her?'” he said. “‘If you want to get married, marry her. If not, leave her alone.’ I said ‘Ma, I’d love to marry her. I don’t have two nickels.’ She said, ‘Don’t worry about it.’”

He took his mom’s advice and the two got married in February 1941.

About six months after the wedding, his mother died.

“It was as if she was made to do what she did and went to heaven,” he said.

He was then drafted into the U.S. Army two years later from 1943 to 1946. He was in Mississippi before being sent to California.

Bluefeld remembers telling his wife to not come to California, because he didn’t want her to be alone.

That didn’t stop her, however, from hopping on a train for three days from Baltimore to California to say goodbye before his deployment overseas.

“We went to New Guinea, and we stayed in New Guinea for a year. We moved up from there, we went Philippine Islands,” he said.

He showed WPBF 25 News the radiogram he sent to his wife from Manila, as he waited in line for 12 hours.

“Have patience honey our day … our day will come,” he wrote.

He soon left the army and the couple eventually found themselves at the Boca West Country Club since 1985, after running a catering business for decades.

Bluefeld Caterers provided kosher meals during the announcement of the Peace Accords when President Jimmy Carter was in office. This was the first time that leaders had a kosher meal in the White House. His business also catered President Richard Nixon’s Inaugural Ball.

The couple has been spending every day relaxing in the Sunshine State.

“She made a bum out of me. I played golf for 30 years, and I played cards,” he said.

And the Bluefelds are happy to spend time together this Valentine’s Day.

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“I go to Hallmark, I spend more money than I ever want to spend for a card. I’m a $1.95 guy but I have to buy Hallmark, because she looks and says, ‘Oh it’s a Hallmark card,'” he said.

And now the couple is celebrating nearly 82 years together.

“What made our marriage work? Outside the fact that me saying ‘yes’ all the time?” he laughed.

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