Bettey and Jack Tobey’s first date was a hayride more than 75 years ago, and they’re still going strong.

They were sophomores at Concord High. They went their separate ways for a few years to serve their country, but they began as high school sweethearts and they’ll finish that way, as the lone married couple living at the New Hampshire Veterans Home in Tilton.

They’ve been married for 66 years. 

“They are the only married couple in the entire place,” said Sarah Stanley, the Veterans Home's public information officer. “Sometimes folks live here and their spouses aren’t eligible to live here because their spouse is not a veteran.”

Stanley wanted the couple to know how special they were.  

“It’s very unique that both of you are veterans,” she said to them during a recent visit to their room. “Both of you served our country.”

Details from their military pasts were sometimes fuzzy. Their daughter, Elizabeth Jewell of Franklin, filled in some background and helped make her parents’ thoughts and comments clearer during a phone interview. Stanley helped too.

Enough details emerged to reveal that Bettey, who served in the Navy from 1955 to ‘57, had a more glamorous role than Jack did in her military career.

Jack was darn proud of that. He pointed out that Bettey had finished at the top of her class. She decoded messages for the United States during the Cold War, sounding very Jane Bond-like. 

She worked at the Pentagon, visiting the gargantuan complex twice a week, delivering decoded messages with a briefcase handcuffed to her wrist.

“Quite a meaningful situation,” Bettey said. “We made sure things got used in the Naval Center for people who needed to know what was going on. There were naval officers and others guiding me to get to the right place with the information.”

Jack, 88, served in the Army from 1954 to ‘56 and was stationed in Germany. He and Bettey kept in touch and were married within a year after their discharge. They honeymooned at Lake Winnipesaukee.

“We had a good time together,” Bettey said. “His family and my family loved each other, so that worked out. His dad was a terrific guy, and he was so happy that Jack wanted to get married.”

They finished college. Bettey studied social work and worked in hospitals. Jack worked for an insurance company for 35 years. They lived in Vermont and on the Seacoast, and in later years they retired to Franklin before moving to their new home last year.

They were, at times, a comedy team, feeding off one another, without a script or rehearsal, and all with a straight face.

Bettey, it turns out, asked Jack out on their first date, the hayride moving from Concord to the east.

“I don’t know how we first met,” Jack said. “All I remember from then is that the next thing I know, I’m on a hayride.”

Stanley joined in: “When she was bold enough to ask you out, you know that she had her eyes on you.”

Countered Jack, “She spent the rest of her life repenting.”

They were a smash hit, the best husband-wife comedy team since Burns and Allen.

Then things turned serious, and a scene popped into Bettey’s mind from a long time ago.

“I remember just holding hands with Jack on that hayride,” Bettey said. “I just thought he was a nice person. Then we got to talk to each other and that just opened up everything.”

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