She went to live with a black man without her father's approval: after 70 years, they are still happily married

 

Would you believe it if we told you that love is such a strong feeling that, if honest and sincere, it is capable of overcoming every difficulty, any mountain that initially seems impossible to overcome, every obstacle? A feeling so true and so pure also has the extraordinary ability to be able to unite two hearts into one, two hearts that belong to two people who are miles apart geographically, but which beat in unison with each other. 

This is the moving story of Mary and Jake Jacobs, a couple who have been married for over seventy years, fulfilling a dream that in the past decades had been denied them over and over again by friends and family. Mary was born and lived in England, while Jake was originally from Trinidad, Central America, and they first met during the 1940s when he was serving in British territory during World War II.

Of that time, Mary Jacobs said: "We were in the same technical college. I was taking typing and shorthand lessons and he was sent there for training by the American Air Force. He was with a group of black friends and they initially called me and my friend over to talk to them. We didn't even know they spoke English, but in the end Jake and I chatted; he used to quote me Shakespeare to win me over, which I loved! "

Weeks went by, and Jake and Mary began dating more and more seriously, until a woman walking in the park while they were having a picnic revealed to Mary's father that her daughter was dating a black man: "Two British girls with a group of black men was a very shocking image for the period, so she told on me to my father, who banned me from seeing him again."

Once the war was over, Jake returned to Trinidad and for many years he could no longer see his beloved Mary, but they exchanged beautiful love letters when they could; then, a few years later, he decided to return to England to ask for her hand and get married; in that year, Mary was only 19 years old.

When the girl told her her father that she wanted marry the man from Trinidad, he replied: "If you marry that man you will never set foot in this house again!" A rather painful statement for Mary, who in later years suffered from a lack of support from her family and ostracism by society at the time, which did not look favorably on interracial marriages.

When they moved to Birmingham, life was not easy for the couple; after they married in the registry office in 1948, they had decidedly difficult moments: "The first years of our marriage spent in Birmingham were hell: I cried every day and barely ate. Nobody spoke to us, we couldn't find a place to live because no one would rent to a black man and we had no money." Mary continued.

Over time, things got better, Jake and Mary began to make friends with their new neighbors, even if the ostracism by English society of the period was always a dark shadow in the life of the couple; Mary's dad, with whom she had reconciled despite his never having approved of her marriage to Jake, passed away when his daughter turned 30. A great personal pain that never went away.

Now, this extraordinary and very loving couple have passed their 70th year of marriage, and despite the great disappointments, sufferings and difficulties of life, they have never wavered and have continued to live together as husband and wife. It doesn't matter that they have different skin colors, Jake and Mary love each other like it was the first day they met.

Congratulations to this amazing couple, from whom we could learn a lot from!