HANCOCK COUNTY — Love is in the air as people everywhere celebrate Valentine’s Day this weekend, but one local couple just might have the most enduring love of all.
Gene and Madonna Addison are celebrating their 77th Valentine’s Day together.
The high school sweethearts — who graduated from Wilkinson High School in the 1940s — celebrated their 73rd wedding anniversary last year.
They were dating for roughly four years before tying the knot on Aug. 22, 1947.
Back when they were kids, they never could have guessed their love would span over nearly eight decades, and that each would be blessed with such lasting love and long-term good health.
Madonna, born in 1929, will celebrate her 92nd birthday on Monday. Gene, born in 1927, turned 93 last June.
“Longevity runs in my family, but none of my family reached their 90s,” said Gene, who likes to stay active. He can often be found checking and sometimes mowing the 100 acres of farmland he rents in eastern Hancock County.
He and his wife are spending this Valentine’s weekend surrounded by the family they built together — three kids, six grandkids and three great-grandkids — all of whom live within a half-hour’s drive or so.
The close-knit couple claim not to have any hidden secrets to fostering such a long-term love.
“We just get along really well,” Madonna said.
‘We’ve had a good life’
The couple has had fun together ever since day one, they said. On their wedding day, the two sneaked out the back door of the church where they were wed, to avoid having their friends kidnap them and drive them around in a truck after the nuptials.
“Back then, the common practice was for your friends to capture you and drive you around for a while and not let you go,” Gene said, “but we got away and snuck out the back door.”
The couple married two years after the end of World War II, as soon as Gene completed a two-year stint in the Navy, serving in the South Pacific. He was 20, and Madonna, who had just graduated from high school, was 18 when they said ‘I do.’
The two young lovebirds had no idea what a full and adventurous life lay ahead of them.
Gene’s cousin fixed them up on a blind date when Gene was a junior and Madonna was a freshman in high school. He played on the school basketball team, and she was a cheerleader.
Although they weren’t yet engaged when Gene left for the service, they wrote each other faithfully during his two years overseas.
The couple just had a hunch they’d be in it for the long haul, through good times and bad.
“We were both raised during the Depression, we went through the Second World War and now we’re going through this pandemic like everybody else,” Gene said.
Yet despite the challenges, there’s been far more good than bad, they say.
“We’ve had a good life,” said Gene, and his wife steadfastly agrees.
All about their family
The Addisons each have lived their whole lives in Hancock County. They both grew up in Wilkinson and moved to Greenfield together 66 years ago, when their kids were young. The city made for a closer commute to Gene’s job as a telephone pioneer administrator with Western Electric in Indianapolis.
Madonna was a homemaker and stay-at-home mom. They’ve built two homes in Greenfield, one for their family, and then one just for them.
Both say the root of their happiness has been their family, who they see on a regular basis. “We have such a good relationship with all of our children. We’ve been very fortunate,” Madonna said.
They talk to at least one of their kids, if not more, each day.
Back when they were young, before they started their family, the Addisons spent practically every weekend going to dances with friends.
“If we didn’t go to a dance on a Saturday night, we thought we were being punished,” recalled Gene, as his wife agreed.
Their favorite dance? “We liked to do the breakaway,” a type of swing dance, Madonna said.
Their favorite music was romantic in nature. “What was popular in our youth was romantic music, nothing like the music you hear today,” Gene said.
After raising their kids, the couple’s interest turned to travel. They’ve visited all 50 states and seven or eight countries over the years, and have racked up the miles on three different RVs.
For many years, up until COVID hit, the couple would drive down to Fort Meyers, Fla., each winter, renting a condo at the Lexington Country Club. Their kids and grandkids would always visit, creating unforgettable family memories.
“This is the first year we haven’t spent our winter in Florida in many, many years, because with (the threat of) COVID we didn’t want to be away from our hospital or our doctor,” Gene said.
Facing the pandemic
The couple said that riding out the pandemic, like all of life’s challenges, has been possible because they have each other by their sides.
“We’ve always enjoyed each other. We’ve always had fun together,” Madonna said.
Going through life together has only made their fondness for each other stronger over the years, her husband said.
“You fall in love as kids and then it develops into a really strong love over a number of years,” Gene said.
“When you’ve been married as many years as we have, it’s not like she’s my wife, it’s almost like she’s a part of myself. You become the best of friends in addition to being married,” he said.
Over the years, most of the couple’s friends have passed away, leaving them without a group of pals to hang around with. “We had a lot of friends we loved who are no longer there. We’d always get together with them in the evenings on the porch and have a cocktail,” Gene reminisced.
While it’s just the two of them, he and his wife still love one another’s company. The two have always enjoyed going out to the movies and to dinner, but they do so far less since COVID hit.
“If it wasn’t for this pandemic we’d go out to dinner a couple of times a week,” Gene said. Sullivan’s Steakhouse in Indianapolis is one of their favorite spots, along with Wolfies Grill in Geist and Kopper Kettle Inn Restaurant in Morristown.
Coffee and board games
What’s a normal day look like for them now? “We have coffee and talk a lot,” Gene said. They also enjoy playing board games.
As far as advice on hashing out differences, both husband and wife say that talking is key.
“You have to respect the other person’s opinion,” Gene said. “Just because you’re married a number of years, you both still have opinions, and you have to respect them.”
Couples need to be willing to do the work to resolve their differences on a daily basis, he said, even if that means swallowing your pride.
“When you live together as long as we have, you can read each other’s minds. You know what they like, what they dislike. When what you say is not right, you pick up on that pretty quick,” Gene said.
Both he and Madonna agree that honest communication is essential.
“Everybody has their problems and has something that’s an issue at times, but you just work through it,” Gene said. “You don’t just pick up your hat and coat and walk out the door like you do today.”
While the Addisons love their day-to-day lives together, both are hoping that the threat of the pandemic dissipates so they can resume their passion for travel. “If we can this summer I want to go out West and get back to the mountains. We’ll see what happens,” Gene said.
In the meantime, they’ll keep savoring each day together, sipping their coffee and enjoying every moment they can with each other and their family.
One of their granddaughters, Kilee Jansen of Carmel, loves to soak in the stories they tell her about their long and happy life together — from how they stayed devoted while Gene was in the Navy, after being drafted when he was 18, to the fun they still have sitting around talking and playing board games in their sunset years.
“I just love their wisdom,” said Jansen, whose mother is Gene and Madonna’s middle child. “I can listen to them talk all day long.”
