Spouses passed away holding hands

In Easton, Calif., Spouses Floyd and Violet Hartwig died after 67 years of living together. They met death on the same day - the couple died, holding hands.

In recent years, the couple did not get up from bed. Feeling the imminent demise of the parents, the children pushed their beds closer to each other and put their father’s hand over the mother’s hand. The first to die was 90-year-old Floyd, and later 5 hours followed him and his 89-year-old wife Violet. This happened on February 11 in their own home - as the spouses wanted. Their daughter Donna Scranton said that her parents wanted to die together. Therefore, the children did their best to make it happen.

Floyd and Violet knew each other as children. They grew up in the farming community of Easton in central California. Their romance began when one day Floyd, who served as a sailor in the US Navy, came home and took Violet to the dance in his uniform. They married in August 1947, and while Floyd was away, he bombarded his wife with love letters. “Even strangers would say when they met them that they had a strong connection,” Donna Scranton recalls. Besides her, the couple had two more children. They lived on a small farm, growing cotton and raising geese. Today they have 10 great-great-grandchildren.