ADRIAN — Patricia Kuney and Norman Long first met as students at Adrian High School in the years after World War II. Pat was a senior. Norm was a year behind her.

They married on June 23, 1951, at the United Brethren Church, beginning a life together that has stretched across 75 years, three homes, two children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, business ownership, military service, travel, deep loss, and the kind of ordinary daily devotion that becomes extraordinary only when viewed across three-quarters of a century.

“Time goes fast,” Pat said with a smile.

On the day of this interview, the Longs were sitting in matching dark blue recliners in the small living room of their new apartment at Hampton Manor. They had moved in only a week earlier, trading their longtime family home on Cadmus Road for the convenience and community of assisted living.

“Everything is done for us,” Pat said. “They clean, the meals are served in the dining room, and there are activities.”

That is a big change for Pat, who was still putting dinner on the table until the day before they moved in.

 “I cooked up until last week,” she said.

The move also offers support for both of them. Norm is dealing with Parkinson’s disease and benefits from physical therapy. Pat is legally blind, making the daily help and companionship of community life a blessing.

Still, they have not entirely let go of home.

“We still have our house on Cadmus Road,” Pat said. “Norm goes over and cuts the grass. He really enjoys mowing the lawn.”

Ask them the secret to a marriage that has lasted 75 years, and the answer comes simply.

“First, marry your best friend,” Pat said.

“Don’t walk away from an argument,” Norm added. “Care for and take care of each other.”

That friendship began, Pat said, with Norm’s quiet nature.

“My mom used to say Norm was such a quiet guy that it took me six months to get him in the house, and then he never left,” she said, smiling.

Her husband credits the example they both had growing up.

“We both had good parents,” he said. “They were good teachers.”

Norm worked as a sales representative for U & I Supply in Jackson, then worked for Beal Supply in Adrian. He later purchased the company and started Industrial Mill Supply Corp. He sold tool parts — drill bits, taps and other supplies — to local factories.

At the time, Pat said, “there were factories all over Adrian.”

“The business was very good to us for a long time,” she said.

Their son, Jeff, later took over the business from his father. He now helps his parents with the house and visits daily.

The Longs’ life together has included joy, hard work and adventure, but it has also included sorrow. Their daughter, Jacquelyn Sue Long Carson, was killed in a crash with a semi on U.S. 223. She left behind her husband and two young children.

“We have been through a lot,” Pat said, her eyes filling with tears. “The death of a child can break a marriage, but it brought us closer together. We think of her every day.”

The Longs also have five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Before children came along, travel became part of their married life.

“We didn’t have children for nine years, so we got into the habit of taking a trip every year,” Pat said. “We’ve been all over the world.”

They traveled up north regularly to their family cottage near Mancelona. They also traveled to Australia, Japan, Europe and Canada. For their 50th wedding anniversary, they took a Rhine River cruise and visited the Moselle region, a place Pat was keen to see because her father had served there during World War I.

Twenty years later, they took a cross-country Amtrak trip.

“It had its mishaps,” Pat said, “but it was something on our bucket list, and it ended well.”

Their life together was interrupted early by military service. A year after they were married, Norm was called up and sent to Japan, where he spent much of the Korean War era.

“Our life has been an adventure,” Pat said, “and the Lord was with us every step of the way.”

Adventure also came through Norman’s love of flying. A licensed pilot, he kept flying until just a couple of years ago, despite losing the fingers of his right hand in a home improvement accident more than 50 years ago.

He was renovating their summer cottage on Devils Lake and using a radial arm saw to cut wood when his hand was pulled under the blade.

Pat said Norm’s first worry was how the injury would affect his annual hunting trips.

“I was really upset,” he said. “How the heck was I going to learn to shoot my rifle with one hand?”

He did learn. He kept hunting. And after an intense certification process, he was cleared to fly again.

“We’ve always lived close to the Lenawee airport, so it just seemed natural to have a plane,” Patricia said. “We often flew up north with the kids and grandkids.”

The couple also spent many winters as Florida “snowbirds” at their home in Winter Haven, where they held season passes to Detroit Tigers spring training games in Lakeland and built lasting friendships over the years.

Through all of it, Pat said, Norm has remained steady and kind.

“Norman always put me and the kids first,” she said. “He is such a kind person.”

“We take care of each other,” her husband replied.

The Longs have been members of Sand Creek Community Church for 55 years. Pastor Bill Van Valkenburg, who came to know them while preaching at Sand Creek, said he has long felt a special connection to the couple. He first noticed them in an anniversary announcement 15 years ago and realized they had been married on June 23, 1951 — the exact day he was born.

“All I can say is that we have just had a special connection through the years,” Van Valkenburg said. “I consider them dear and precious friends.”

For the Longs, the years have gone quickly. But after 75 years of marriage, what remains is not simply the number. It is the life inside it — the homes they made, the children they raised, the places they traveled, the losses they endured, the faith that carried them, and the quiet promise they kept to care for one another.

Sitting side by side in their matching blue recliners, the Longs are still doing what they have done for three-quarters of a century.

They are taking care of each other.