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Senior Love Stories: Brad Currey

Love can last a lifetime, and our featured couple in this installment of GrandPad’s Senior Love Stories knows this truth inside and out. Their story of love, of grand gestures, of small kindnesses that bloom into the journey of a lifetime is one to be cherished. At GrandPad we constantly work to connect seniors with their loved ones and provide them with the tools to preserve every moment, to share every memory. And now, we’d like to share some with you. Join us as we relive Brad’s connection that started it all in today’s Senior Love Story.

(Far Right) Brad & Sally Currey at Baylor Military School Dance
(Far Right) Brad & Sally Currey at Baylor Military School Dance

Brad Currey and his beloved wife, Sally, have been married for an astonishing 63 years. But though their bond over the years has remained rock solid, Brad fondly recalls that the road to their perfect union was a long one – and well worth it.

Brad first met Sally at the ripe young age of 11. His parents built a new house in Chattanooga, Tennessee and moved in next door to Sally’s family. So in this case, Sally was quite literally the girl next door. Sally’s backyard was a sprawling grass field where all the neighborhood boys met to play touch football. Sally was a tomboy and would always join, often defeating Brad and the other local boys. Brad hadn’t hit puberty yet and wasn’t exactly interested in girls, but he knew there was something special about Sally. When Brad turned 14, Sally suddenly stopped playing sports with the fellas, and as Brad later learned, her mother didn’t exactly approve of “all that touching” in touch football.

That’s when Brad started chasing the girl next door to be his wife, and he never gave up. As he recollects, with a chuckle, “it took me a long, long time to catch up with her. I don’t know if I caught up with her because she slowed down or I sped up.” Once Brad had his driver’s license Sally was the first girl he asked on a date. They saw a movie and “had a Krystal burger” eating two meals for 15 cents. But that wasn’t the end of the journey. Sally went out with many guys throughout high school, in particular a Skipper Jones, whom Brad insists was “kind of a doofus.”

During college, Brad would drive to visit Sally. When he joined the army, he would write her three times a week and visited her when he could. There were always plenty of men trying to court Sally, men with fancy cars, slicked back hair, and “swanky social engagements,” as Brad put it, but Brad persisted and took her out whenever he could. Brad’s biggest problem when courting Sally, he insists, is that “her mother and her stepfather liked me.” Sometimes being the parents’ choice can be a curse, but Brad was undeterred.

Graduating from officer candidate school as a Second Lieutenant, Brad finally decided he couldn’t hold back any longer. He took her out one evening, kneeled down on one knee, looked her in the eyes, and said, “I love you so very much. Will you please marry me?”

“To my amazement, she said yes!” Brad exclaimed, the excitement of the memory persisting over 60 years later. The two were married on May 6th, 1953, at Lookout Mountain Presbyterian Church in Chattanooga, and have been together ever since. Brad has some key advice for young couples yearning for a relationship as strong as his and Sally’s. “You’re not always right.” He also adds, “when you get married, you make promises. And promises are only important when they’re difficult to carry out.”

As Sally’s health has declined over the last several years, Brad gets to show her day in and day out how important those promises, his vows, are to her. The most rewarding aspect of being married for 63 years, he admits, is simply still being madly in love after all this time. At GrandPad, we know that those simple truths are what connect us all and allow such a connection to deepen and grow as time goes on. That’s why our Senior Love Stories are so touching – the love only grows as we follow it through the years.