(CNN) -- They met in elementary school, began a romance
during World War II and married not long afterward. They had a lifelong
devotion to each other as husband and wife that lasted nearly 66 years -- and
one day earlier this month they died, just 11 hours apart.
Their children call it their "final act of love."
Harold Knapke, 91, and his wife, Ruth, 89, died August 11 at
the Versailles Health Care Center nursing home in Russia, Ohio, spokeswoman
Teresa Pohlmon said.
Their children said they were nine days short of their 66th
wedding anniversary.
"It's consoling to us that they went together,"
said their daughter, Margaret Knapke. "On one hand it's difficult to lose
both parents at once when you didn't see it coming ... but it's very consoling
that they got to go together."
According to Margaret, her father's health had been
deteriorating more quickly than her mother's for about a year.
"We would ask, 'Why is he still here?'" Margaret
said. "And the answer was that he was here for Mom."
"He loved her very dearly. He was extremely loyal. He
wanted to be here with her," she added. "He would sleep all day
toward the end but when he'd wake the first thing he'd ask is, 'Where's your
mother? How's your mother?'"
Margaret said Ruth contracted a rare infection shortly
before her death and it was clear she was not going to recover. When Margaret
and her siblings told her father the news, she recalled, he took it calmly but
they saw a "shift" in him.
Just a few days later, Margaret and one of her sisters
noticed that their father appeared to be very ill, she said.
"My sister said, 'It's almost like he's trying to catch
up to Mom.'"
Three days later, Harold died, at 7:30 a.m.
"I think he realized what was happening and wanted to
pave the way for her," the couple's son, Ted Knapke, said.
After their father died, the Knapke children surrounded
their mother -- who was not lucid -- and told her, "Dad's up there
waiting. They got the card game going and it's time you got up there. Don't
stick around for us," Ted Knapke said.
Ruth Knapke died that night, at 6:30 p.m.
"I think certainly when two people are that close for
66 years you become pretty in sync mentally. So regardless of their state I
think they realized it was time," Ted Knapke said.
Ruth and Harold Knapke met when they were students at the
same elementary school in Ohio but were separated when Harold's family moved
several towns away, according to Carol Romie, another daughter of the Knapkes.
"Dad was a year ahead of Mom and I remember Mom would
tell us, 'I had a crush on your dad when I was in the third grade,'"
Margaret Knapke said.
It wasn't until Harold was serving in World War II and
stationed in Germany that their relationship began. Ruth's brother-in-law
Steve, who was also serving, overheard that Harold was from the same county in
Ohio as Ruth and suggested that Harold write to her.
Their relationship grew from there, according to their
daughter Ginny Reindl.
"Mom knew who he was right away," Margaret Knapke
said of her mother's reaction to the letter. The two continued to write each
other until Harold returned from the war in 1945.
The couple married two years later, on August 20, 1947, and
had six children together: Carol, Pat, Margaret, Ginny, Ted and Tim. Harold
worked in Ohio's Fort Recovery school system as a principal, teacher and coach
and Ruth became a school secretary.
"I guess to me, the most important part of the story
was their dedication to each other -- loyal right to the end," Romie said.
"Supportive and protective of each other, and that was the beautiful part.
They worked at being married for 65 years. It didn't just happen. They went
into it with the idea that this was forever, and it was. They made it that
way."
The two were laid to rest together in a joint funeral.
"Mom and Dad were ordinary people," Reindl said.
"I guess if people can learn from our story it's that there is love that
lasts, and that's a good thing."
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