Married 55 Years, Couple Dies Hours Apart

CHICAGO, IL -- For Tom and Dolores Smith, their love story was eternal. Married 55 years, the Beverly couple passed away just hours apart last week. They had been together since they were 16.

It seemed predestined that both should meet. They were each born during the same month in the same year. Tom was two weeks older, born Dec. 10, 1935; Dolores was a Christmas Eve baby. Growing up in Valparaiso, Indiana, her family moved to the South Side’s Little Flower Parish so Dolores could attend Mercy High School. Tom was a Leo boy.

When they were teenagers, their paths crossed at a local hospital. Dolores was visiting a sick relative. Tom went to see a girl he had planned to take to his prom. Tom and Dolores met in the hospital corridor and sparks flew.

“The girl my father was going to take to prom couldn’t get out of it. I don’t know if she was sick or broke something,” said Marifran Smith, the couple’s daughter. “My parents met in the hallway and immediately hit it off.”

Tom and Dolores’s first date was at the Leo High School junior prom. After high school, Tom did a stint in the peace-time Army, guarding Nike missiles and protecting cows in Wisconsin, her father often joked.

“He was a little too young for Korea and a little too old for Vietnam,” Marifran said.

Cherished Decades

When he returned from the Army, Tom and Dolores got married Dec. 29, 1962, at St. Sabina Church. They moved to Beverly in 1967. They spent cherished decades together, where they were respected members of St. Cajetan Parish. Tom worked as an accountant. Dolores taught kindergarten in the Chicago Public Schools. They raised three great kids — Tom Jr., John and Marifran, the couple’s only daughter. Products themselves of Catholic education, the couple sent their own children to the parish grammar school. The boys went to Mt. Carmel High School, Marifran attended Mother McAuley.

When Dolores retired from teaching after 30 years, she grew bored. She saw an opening for a “Story Lady” at Evergreen Park Public Library. She applied and was hired on the spot. She did what she loved, reading stories to young children and leading them in craft activities. During the various holiday seasons, Dolores was famous for her holiday-themed, Story Lady sweaters. On Halloween, she wore cat ears.

“We spent many an evening cutting things out and putting craft kits together,” Marifran laughed. “My mom was well known for bringing Salerno butter cookies. If the kids were good after story time, they’d line up and get their fingers ready where mom would slip on a butter cookie.”

The sons married: Tom Jr. to Terry, and John to Dorie. Their sons and daughters-in-law gave Tom and Dolores six wonderful grandchildren — Tommy, Patty, Danny, Brian, Brenna and Addison. Asked if her parents made marriage look easy, Marifran paused.

“I’m single, but from what I observed, bad times come and bad times go, but you get through it,” she said. “Both my parents had a quirky sense of humor.”

During their more than half century of marriage, Tom and Dolores did everything together. Both loved music. Tom played the organ, Dolores played piano, even though the couple owned neither instrument. Both loved to sing and they would often sing together.

“They loved musicals and they had quite a CD collection of various Broadway shows,” Marifran said. “They passed their love of music on to the next generations. I’m interested in theater stuff, as are my three nieces.”

As Tom and Dolores grew older, Marifran lived with them and helped her parents with the grocery shopping and laundry. When the South Side Irish Parade went dark for a few years, Marifran and her brothers chipped in to buy their parents a parade banner, which they proudly hung in the front hall of their apartment throughout the month of March.

The Slow Fade

The couple had ailments, but both seemed to be plugging along until the sudden fade began in March. Dolores broke some ribs after a fall in the bathroom. Tom had a doctor appointment and was immediately hospitalized with an undiagnosed heart issue. When he came home, Tom, too, fell in an accident almost identical to his wife’s. He was readmitted to Ingalls Hospital on Palm Sunday. Dolores followed him there the following Wednesday.

“It was one thing after another,” Marifran said. “Mom had almost the same medical issues that my father had. We were working on her healing and getting better. She seemed to be doing better when she had her event.”

Dolores went first, passing away in the early evening on April 3, surrounded by her children and grandchildren.

“Even before she passed, my mother was gone,” her daughter said. “There was no response, no hand squeezing.”

Hospitalized on different floors, Marifran and her brothers kept their father apprised on a need-to-know basis. When the time came to tell him their mother had passed, he asked to be brought down to her room so he could gaze at Dolores’s face one last time.

“It wasn’t that he didn’t believe us, he just had to see for himself,” Marifran said. “When he saw her, he just seemed to give up.”

Tom died the next evening on April 4. There are many stories of long-married couples dying weeks or months apart. Marifran describes their passing within hours of each other as a “surprise” and a “one-two punch.”

“He died of a broken heart,” Marifran said. “They had been taking care of each other for so long.”

For Marifran, Tom Jr. and John, who must now navigate the rest of their lives as adult orphans, they predicted to each other that when one of their parents died, the one left would not be long to follow.

“We just didn’t think it would be hours,” Marifran said. “They were a matched set, like salt and pepper. The only consolation in all this is that they didn’t have to live apart.”

Visitation for Tom and Dolores Smith will be from 3 to 9 p.m. Thursday, April 12, at Donnellan Funeral Home, 10525 S.Western Ave., Chicago. A Mass of Christian Burial is planned for 11 a.m. Friday, April 13, at St. Cajetan Church in Chicago. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the St. Cajetan Education Fund 2445 W. 112th St. Chicago, IL 60655. Friends and family may leave condolences online.