The words said Tuesday, Aug. 25, were the same ones uttered on Aug. 25 in 1949. And on each and every 25th of every month in between. In bed at night, in the hospital, in Mexico on vacation. Christmas, 60 times. Plenty of Thanksgiving dinners, too. In the car, at the kitchen table and a few times in church.
Now, on the 60th wedding anniversary of the Rev. Charles and Mary Alice Mitchell, Tuesday made 720 times that the Rock Hill couple has said “I do.”
Marriage vows, from memory, every single month of their marriage.
This latest wedding anniversary and saying of the vows — 60 years — happened in their living room.
In the audience were five Mitchell siblings, accounting for hundreds of years of married Mitchells. There were 10 Mitchell kids from down at Edgemoor, north of the Chester County line. The Marrying Mitchells, you might say.
Among them, 522 years of marriage.
“I had 38 years till my husband passed,” said Annie.
“I got 46 so far,” Jimmy said.
“45 for me,” Margaret said.
“53,” Rosa said.
“Mine, 44,” Florence said.
Lawrence has been married 57 years. William had been wedded for 58 years before his wife died, and John, the only sibling who has passed on, had 57 years.
Brother Eugene celebrated 60 years of marriage just last week.
“You might say the Mitchells were brought up to find somebody and stay together,” said William, the oldest, who turns 93 Thursday.
The Rev. Boyce Wilson of Ebenezer Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church stood there behind Charles and Mary Alice, but he acknowledged that he had little to do but smile.
“Never heard of another couple who renew their vows every month for 60 years,” he said. “They know the drill.”
The vows originally came from an uncle, a preacher, at the couple's wedding near Flat Rock, N.C. Charles, a minister all his life, remembered them all. “I had at least 719 times to practice the words,” he said, chuckling.
Charles began.
“I, Charles, take thee, Mary Alice, to be my lawful wedded wife,” he said. “I do solemnly promise before God and these witnesses that I will love, honor and cherish thee, and that forsaking all others, will faithfully perform unto thee all the duties that a husband owes to his wife as long as we both shall live.”
Then Mary Alice went, repeating the female version of the same vows. She was perfect.
Charles was on a roll. He didn't have to give a ring because he gave her one 60 years ago, but he said the ring part of the vows again, because after 720 times it had to be right.
“With this ring, I thee wed,” Charles said. “And all my worldly goods I thee endow in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.”
Then Mary Alice said the same.
“It kind of sticks in your mind after 60 years,” she said with a wink.
Wilson did have one thing to say: “You may kiss the bride.”
You bet Charles wasted no time for the 720th happening: He planted a fat smacker on Mary Alice.
Andrew Dys 803-329-4065
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