Meet Lyle & Eleanor Gittens: World's Oldest Living Married Couple
The World’s Oldest Married Couple Is Black Love At Its Finest — Meet Lyle And Eleanor Gittens
Now this is Black love at its finest. Lyle Gittens, 108, and Eleanor Gittens, 107, have officially earned the title of the world’s oldest living married couple. With a combined age of 216 years and 132 days, they also hold the Guinness World Record for the oldest living married couple by aggregate age.
RELATED CONTENT: Recognizing Black Women Who Broke Barriers In The Arts
LongeviQuest — an organization that verifies and publishes “world’s oldest people rankings” — recently spoke with the couple about the secret to their eight decades of marriage. Their answers were beautifully simple. “We love each other,” Eleanor said in a Nov. 4 interview. Lyle added, “I love my wife.”
Lyle and Eleanor Gittens’ love story.
The pair’s love story began more than 80 years ago at Clark Atlanta University, where they met as students in 1941. Lyle was a standout basketball player who would later be inducted into the Clark Atlanta University Men’s Basketball Hall of Fame, and Eleanor fondly remembered watching him play. It didn’t take long for them to realize they had found something special. They were married on June 4, 1942, and celebrated their 83rd wedding anniversary earlier this year.
Their journey together, however, was not without its hardships. Shortly after their wedding, World War II was underway, and Lyle was deployed to Italy with the U.S. Army’s 92nd Infantry Division. At the time, Eleanor was expecting their first child and often wondered if she would ever see her husband again. Though they wrote to each other regularly, Lyle’s letters were censored by military mail clerks.
Fortunately, the couple was reunited after the war and went on to raise three children in New York City: son Lyle Rogers and daughters Angela and Ignae. Both Lyle and Eleanor built successful careers in government service after taking the New York civil service exam, and they enjoyed working side by side.
Eleanor’s passion for education never faded; at 69 years old, she earned a doctorate in Urban Education from Fordham University.
In a February 2022 interview with The Westside Gazette, Eleanor revealed that the couple used to enjoy a martini almost every evening, perhaps their real secret to longevity. She also recalled that Lyle was drafted “barely a week after” he proposed.
The couple lives happily in Miami now, although Lyle misses New York from time to time.
Congrats to the Gittens!
RELATED CONTENT: The Motherland: 70-Year-Old Woman Delivers Healthy Twins In Uganda
