Married 75 years and still dating

Ask LaVon Dea how to get to know your spouse and she will tell you to start a remodeling project. She will also tell you she wishes she had let her husband, Bob, install the tuna fish can.

"It would have made quite the conversation piece," she said, reflecting on one moment in 75 years of marriage that is being celebrated today.

Years ago, the two had a door to the back porch that was continually banging against the wall. LaVon caught Bob getting ready to cut a hole in the wall — he planned to use the tuna can to create a recess for the door knob so it wouldn't punch a hole in the wall.

"Haven't you ever heard of a door stop?" she said to him.

But it was the hallway that led to the biggest argument between them. When their children were small, they had moved their home from Garfield to Magna and planned a complete remodel. LaVon wanted to change an existing doorway to a bedroom into a hallway leading to a bedroom and bathroom.

"I told her she couldn't do it," said Bob.

Bob went to work, and LaVon tore down the wall.

When Bob got back from work, he put the wall back up. The very next day, LaVon took it down again. And the next time Bob put that wall back up, he did it her way.

That disagreement was a huge one, but to their credit, it is the only one their sons can remember in a marriage that has spanned more than seven decades.

The Deas met as teenagers in Magna. LaVon had been going with Bob's best friend. When she was 16, she was in an automobile accident that injured her elbow. Bob, who was also friends with her brother, used to visit each day and massage that elbow.

"She figured out she had something pretty good so she ditched her boyfriend," Bob said. Even at 97, you can hear the pride in his voice of the 19-year-old boy who got his girl.

Bob and LaVon were married in 1933. He had $15 at the time. He bought her a ring, a suit for himself and a marriage license. She rented her temple clothing, and they borrowed a car.

"And we thought we were well off," said LaVon.

They were married in the midst of the Great Depression. Bob worked at the grocery store working six days a week, 12 hours a day, for $30 a month.

"Of course, a loaf of bread was only 5 cents back then, but nobody had a nickel," Bob said.

They had four sons together, and together they mourned the loss of one — a twin boy who died at 17 months. The doctor couldn't tell them for sure what happened, but Bob and LaVon believe his death was the result of a fall the day before he died.