PROVO — A romance that has lasted more than 70 years still continues between Allan and Leah Tidwell of Provo.
The pair started holding hands in 1935 when they met in Southern California.
They were still holding hands during their interview with the Deseret Morning News.
"We're both hanging on for dear life," Leah Tidwell said.
They married in the Salt Lake Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Sept. 21, 1937 after a courtship that began when a young Allan Tidwell from Smithfield went to visit his uncle who owned an A&W Root Beer stand in North Hollywood where Leah worked.
"She taught me how to make milkshakes," Allan Tidwell said.
As their relationship grew Allan took her swimming in the ocean and to see an ocean liner, things a young girl from Tooele never had imagined.
Both 19 when they met, they dated for two years.
"I wrote her every week for two years," he said.
Now both are 91. Their birthdays are July 15 and July 17 respectively. She's two days his senior.
"I'm the boss for two days every year," she said.
They base much of their success together on sharing the same religious beliefs.
"We both had the same ideas," Allan Tidwell said. "We always liked to do things together."
They also spend time with their family.
"She cooks good, too," he said. "That's a good selling point for any man."
Over the years both spent much of their free time with the youth of their church, he with the Boy Scouts and she with the ward Young Women. His long years of service with the Scouts earned him the Silver Beaver award.
They lived for 25 years in Richmond, Calif., where he worked as an accountant.
Their four children live close, which is convenient for family get-togethers. Daughter Jean Weeks lives in Lindon, Richard in Provo, Verl in Salt Lake City and LeAnne Schegal in Provo. They have 19 grandchildren and 32 great-grandchildren.
"We're busy all the time," Allan Tidwell said.
After retiring the Tidwells relocated to Provo in 1966. Allan Tidwell went back to work for a few more years. Leah Tidwell became a dessert cook at the Missionary Training Center, a position she held for 15 years.
Among her earliest remembrances is the first Armistice Day, which signaled the end of World War I. She was a toddler living in San Diego where parents were serving an LDS mission. When the celebration broke out among the sailors, the noise scared her, she said, and she ran to her mother for comfort.
"The whole town just went crazy," she said.
As a couple they also remember the Depression.
"It was so bad we would pick up scrap wood on the beach when the tide was out (for firewood)," Allan Tidwell said.
It has soaked in oil, so when they burned it, it glowed a bright, cherry red.
Every week they would collect the cream off their milk, which they bought by the quart, so they could have whipped cream on their desserts after Sunday dinners.
Hamburgers back then sold for 5 cents; with cheese, 15 cents. Two mugs of root beer sold for a nickel.
Today the couple still lives at home where Leah Tidwell does most of the cooking. Their family roots run deep, said their son Richard Tidwell
Leah Tidwell's grandfather survived the Martin Handcart tragedy in LDS Church history while Allan Tidwell's grandmother was born of pioneer stock in Smithfield.
E-mail: rodger@desnews.com