Official site of Tribune News serving Tomball, Magnolia and Waller

After 70 years of marriage, neither Loyd nor Betty Hunter has lost the initial spark either had when first meeting each other decades ago.

Sitting in the hallway of Tomball Retirement Center holding hands, the two talked about their life together and how they ended up in south Texas.

"I was working in my sister's grocery store, a little country store in Van Buren, Ark.," Loyd said. "(Betty) came in and asked of we carried something or another and I told her we didn't. She told me 'aww, you wouldn't even know if you did'."

Loyd, a self-described Arkansas hillbilly, was soon shipped off to Battle Creek, Mich. by the army, in preparation for World War II, while his sweetheart moved to the Houston area with her family.

The two got married – "my marriage license cost me a whole $3, Loyd said – and Loyd prepared for service as a military police officer.

"My mother wrote to (President Franklin D.) Roosevelt to ask him if he would send me to where my twin brother was stationed and he did it," Loyd said.

Loyd was shipped off to Lincoln, Neb., where he and his brother were cooks for the Army Air Corps.

"We stayed there for the duration of the war," he said.

After the war, Loyd moved to the Houston area to be with his bride, where he became a builder.

"I had a model park out on the East Tex Freeway," he said.

The couple would go on to raise four boys and three girls and now have a slew of grandchildren.

As for their longevity, Loyd says it is simple.

"She tells me what to do," he said. "We have had little fusses along the way, but we've really gotten along real well."

Five years ago the pair moved into the Tomball Retirement Center, where their caregivers that they are obviously still deeply in love.

"They still cuddle and sleep in the same bed," said caretaker Mary Middlebrook.

Caretaker Londa Osborne-Butler said that Loyd and Betty are still sharp witted and a funny pair.

"I always tease them about me taking (Loyd) out on a date and she always says 'ok just take him'," she said.

The couple sits regularly on a hallway couch holding hands – they call it waiting on the bus – and talking to workers and residents alike.

"She's my other half," Loyd says with a big smile.