"She's really tough and independent," says Virginia Pearce, another of the couple's three daughters. "But it's not a selfish independence. She was always willing to make herself available to Dad."

During the 1998 Governor's Marriage Enrichment Conference, Sister Hinckley told an audience, "I am very grateful for a husband who always lets me do my own thing. ... He never insists that I do anything his way, or any way for that matter. From the very beginning he gave me space and let me fly.

"What a man!"

There were times, of course, when they had differences of opinion, and she put her foot down and prevailed. He was always, for instance, tearing up the house with remodeling projects. When it got to be too much, she would say enough and stand her ground. He'd laugh or leave the room and let it go.

General authorities of the LDS Church have been heard to say, "She is every bit his equal intellectually, spiritually and socially."

But they are different. As Virginia notes, "They have complementary qualities, which makes them a good team."

The way Virginia describes it, her father is "focused, disciplined, overloaded. And she just had this remarkable ability not to push life. It made home a refuge for him."

President Hinckley tends to be in a hurry while his wife has always taken things slower, even when she was a young woman. He walks as fast as he can go while Sister Hinckley moseys along. "Hurry up, Marge," he'll say.

"Oh, slow down," she'll say pleasantly. She doesn't get upset, but she doesn't walk faster either. Once, when she was asked what she considered to be a good birthday present, she said, "Just to be alive, to be able to put my shoes on and go."

Sister Hinckley describes life with her husband these days this way: "We just get up in the morning, put on our shoes and go to work." He goes to work every morning, at the age of 92, coming home for lunch and dinner with his wife. She has frequent visitors: her siblings, children, grandkids.

Most of her longtime friends have either died or can't get out. Ask her what she does each day, she says, "That's not a problem. I'm just busy all day." Sister Hinckley has the normal aches and pains of her age, but any discussion of them doesn't get far. A conversation with her daughters will go something like this:

Daughters: "Do your knees hurt?"

Sister Hinckley: "Well, I'm old."

Daughters: "You never say anything."

Sister Hinckley: "What good would it do?"