93-Year-Old Carries On Tradition By Eating Lunch With Late Wife’s Photo Every Day

Georgia natives Clarence and Carolyn Purvis met and fell in love in 1948 when they were 24 and 16. During the last 13 years of their decades-long marriage, the two would go to lunch at Smith’s Restaurant in Reidsville, GA. Clarence, 93-years-old, is carrying on a tradition he made with his wife of 63 years. That habit is one that Clarence was continuing even after Carolyn’s death nearly four years ago.

Clarence heads to the restaurant every day and orders the daily special. He sits down in his favorite booth and begins to eat alongside the photograph of his late wife that he brings with him.

“She was always with me when we were livin’. She is with me now,” he said.

The two’s love for each other is well known all around town, but especially in the restaurant,  However, Clarence said that people sometimes suggest he is just lonely and should get a girlfriend.

“Ain’t no one love one another more than me and my wife loved one another,” Clarence said. “I wanted what she wanted, and she wanted what I wanted.”

The couple had three children, six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren, and they were inseparable during their marriage.

“Eat lunch, come back, watch television, go to bed, love one another. What more you want?” Clarence said of their days. “We had everything we wanted.”

He spends his time visiting her grave site about “125 times a month,” he says.

“I love her that much and miss her that much,” he said. “And think she is with me.”

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