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Ala. couple celebrate 80th anniversary

Section: Romance

Yahoo! News

SCOTTSBORO, Ala. - A Scottboro couple recently celebrated their 80th wedding anniversary, one of the longest marriages among living people when compared to reports in the 2007 Guinness Book of World Records.

Alonzo, 97, and Beulah Sims, 94, celebrated their anniversary a day early Sunday at the nursing home where they have lived since May 2002.

Without their families' approval, the two teens married in 1927, when he was working at a farm, plowing fields with a mule and picking cotton for 50 cents a day.

The couple, who raised six children, credit their long lives to hard farm work and eating lots of vegetables. They moved frequently to find farm work, going from Paint Rock Valley near Garth to Atchley Bottom in Madison County and then to Woodville in the 1960s.

They said their eight decades of marriage have been virtually free of fussing.

"We've been too busy to fight," Beulah Sims said.

Alonzo Sims retired from farming in 1966 and did janitorial work at Redstone Arsenal until 1972. They also operated service stations in Paint Rock and Woodville for a few years. Now, they spend their time visiting other residents at the nursing home, listening to gospel music, and playing bingo.

"After all these years," he said, "I still enjoy being with her."

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