thedailywhat:

Heartbreaking Tearjerker of the Day: Gordon Yeager, 94, and his wife Norma, 90, lived together for 72 years. Last week, after a tragic car accident, they died together, one hour apart, holding hands.

The couple got married in 1939, the day Norma graduated from high school. They lived their whole lives in the small town of State Center, Iowa, where they raised four children.

“Staying together for 72 years is good, I’d say that’s exceptional,” daughter Donna Sheets said. “They always did everything together. They weren’t apart. They just weren’t.”

True to their nature, the Yeagers were together last Wednesday at the intersection of Highway 30 and Jessup Avenue outside Marshalltown, where their car struck another car head on. They were brought into the ICU of Marshalltown’s hospital together, holding hands.

Gordon passed away shortly thereafter.

“It was really strange, they were holding hands, and dad stopped breathing but I couldn’t figure out what was going on because the heart monitor was still going,” son Dennis Yeager told KCCI. “But we were like, he isn’t breathing. How does he still have a heart beat? The nurse checked and said that’s because they were holding hands and it’s going through them. Her heart was beating through him and picking it up.” Norma passed away an hour later.

“Neither one of them would’ve wanted to be without each other,” said Sheets. Added Yeager: “They just loved being together.”

[kcci / abcnews / thanks megan!]