Married 67 years, Fresno couple dies hours apart

Married for 67 years, Floyd and Violet Hartwig died this month within hours of one another, lying side by side and holding hands. Their family members told The Fresno Bee the two were often breathing in sync.

"I think that's what kept them going," Donna Scharton, the Hartwig's daughter, told the paper. "They didn't want to go without each other."

Floyd died first. Five hours later, Violet passed.

Other than their breathing, though, the Fresno, California, couple could not communicate on February 11, the day they died, according to the paper. Their passings followed many years of illness. Violet, 89, had a number of strokes and had dementia. Floyd, 90, once had colon and bladder cancer and just weeks before he died was diagnosed with kidney failure.

But their long relationship was one built on romantic correspondence.

"Hi honey, just a few lines from this lonely blue sailor of yours. Miss you darling and so in love with you," Floyd wrote Violet from the Pacific in May 1947, while serving in the Navy during World War II. Both born in Fresno, they'd known each other since elementary school but didn't become romantically involved until the 1940s.

"Honey, I'll sure be glad when I get out of this," Floyd's letter continued, as quoted by the Bee. "It sure isn't for me, though at one time I thought the Navy was pretty swell. That was before I fell in love with the sweetest girl in the world."

The couple was married Aug. 16, 1947.