A beloved Maryland couple who were married for 70 years died holding hands in their hospital beds after being taken off life support following a horrifying car crash last week.
Kenneth and Marilyn Oland, high school sweethearts who wed in July 1955, died side-by-side Monday in a Baltimore hospital, six days after a car slammed into the side of their vehicle on Route 15 near their Thurmont home, according to their obituary and multiple reports.
Kenneth, 90, who was driving, and his 88-year-old wife were rushed to the hospital and placed on life support after suffering complications from the collision.
“I don’t think one could’ve lasted without the other,” their heartbroken friend, Nancy Echard, told Fox 5.
“That’s how tight they were. You always saw them together, no matter where you were.”
An employee at Thurmont Senior Center, where the couple were regulars who played bingo there twice a month, said they had just finished lunch and left about 15 minutes before the fatal crash.
The senior center posted a touching tribute to the late couple – parents of three, grandparents of five, and great-grandparents of six – hailing them as pillars of the community who were never seen without each other.
“To those of us here at the Senior Center, they were simply quite the pair,” Tuesday’s Facebook post said.
“You rarely saw one without the other, and that was no accident, they were two people who genuinely chose each other, every single day. In the end, even in their passing, they were not apart for long. They were a living reminder of what lasting love looks like, and we were blessed to witness it.”
The loving pair, devout churchgoers, regularly brought flowers to friends in nursing homes and were known for deeply cherishing their friends and large family, always uniting everyone for holidays, birthdays, and celebrations, their obituary said.
Marilyn devoted 25 years to chiropractic care before retiring in 2023, and Kenneth spent his life working in marketing.
Grief-stricken family members were comforted that the elderly couple died together and hope their love and legacy will live on.
“If there’s one thing we could share about my grandparents, it’s not only the 70 years they’ve had together and that they chose to be together every day and chose to go away together and leave this earth together,” their granddaughter Kristie Hopkins told the outlet.
“Their legacy is just how to be humans – be humble and kind and graceful to others and help strangers in need.”
