Even death couldn’t keep these two apart. But Raymond and Velva Breuer did vow that that would be the only that could when they wed 77 years ago.
Death, however, failed at breaking them up.
The Breuers will remain together forever now that they’ve been buried together. The couple died within hours of each other and were laid to rest in the very same casket, according to FOX 5 NY.
Raymond was the first to pass as his wife held his hand. Velma wept when her husband left the world and she ended up following him about 30 hours later.
Before passing, Raymond joked with medical staff that he and his wife might as well be put in the same coffin when they go.
But turns out that it wasn’t that much of a joke. It all makes sense once you hear their love story. Raymond and Velva are childhood sweethearts.
“Dad told one of the nurses before he passed, that if they went close together, that they should just be buried together, in the same casket,” son Bobby Breuer told Columbia Tribune. “Jokingly, I think. But other people heard it and we asked the funeral director. Mother was a very small woman, and Dad wasn’t that big.”
The two went to school in the same one-room schoolhouse in Dawson Township in Phelps Country when they were children.
They went on to graduate from the same high school.
The Breuers tied the knot in 1940. Raymond work at the Ford Motor Company in Missouri and moved to North Carolina when they retired.
Raymond served as a preacher for 10 years and a volunteer firefighter in North Carolina.
He also taught at a college and did community service.
The couple moved back to Missouri in 1994.
Raymond was 97 and Velva 96 when they passed away, they were reportedly very mentally strong in their final years.
“I attribute their sharp minds to reading,” daughter Donna Hardin said. “They were avid readers, both of them.”
When Velva moved into Lenoir Woods Rehab Center at the end of 2016, so did Raymond. He slept in a cot in her room.
The couple had four sons and two daughters but only two of their sons and one daughter survived them.
They also had 18 grandchildren and lots of great-grandchildren, and possibly even more great-great-grandchildren.
The family didn’t have a definite count for the press.
“They were very blessed their entire lives,” Bobby Brewer said. “They had health issues but they overcame them. They were blessed and we were blessed because they were so fortunate.”
They were laid to rest in the same casket while holding hands at Oak Grove Cemetery in St. James.
“They would always hold hands and sit in the front-row pews of the church,” said state Rep. Cheri Reisch of Hallsville, who knew the Breuers well. “They never left each other’s side. It was true love.”
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