HAMPDEN, Maine — The second Donald Parker saw his future wife, it was love.
“I thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world,” the 91-year-old said last week with his wife of 70 years sitting beside him.
“She still looks good,” he added later.
Dorothy, 88, quickly quipped, “He has poor eyesight.”
It’s obvious to anyone who sees them that the couple is still madly in love.
The Parkers married in Bangor on Jan. 1, 1940, and will celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary today.
Both Dorothy Parker, who is lovingly called Dot by her husband, and Don attended Bangor High School, where Dot graduated in 1939 and Don graduated in 1936.
“We did not know each other in school,” Don said.
“I was friends with his sister,” Dot recalled. “We went through school together.”
One day Dot was invited to the Parker home on Norway Road by Don’s sister, Laura Parker.
“She introduced us,” Dot recalled. Later, “she was my maid of honor.”
“I was working at a bank and I was just getting home,” Don said. “I walked in and there she was, the most beautiful girl in the world.”
After the two met, Dot held a party so she could lure Don away from a woman he was dating.
“I wasn’t going to let him get away,” she said, a twinkle in her eye.
The plan worked, and the two have been inseparable ever since.
The Parkers have spent their entire lives in the Bangor area running a small business, Parker’s Bike & Hobbies, for many years and raising five boys, the youngest of whom turned 55 last week.
After high school Don worked at the long gone Eastern Trust and Banking Co., but after marrying Dot the couple opened the bike shop.
“I bought a building, a parsonage, on Hammond Street and turned it into a store,” he said.
“A lot of customers would come in and say, ‘I was married in this room,’” Dot recalled.
The shop sold Schwinn and other types of bikes, crafts and toys, and guns and ammo for a short amount of time.
“It made for easy Christmas shopping” for her boys, Dot said.
The couple has five sons, nine grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren. They married when Franklin D. Roosevelt was president and have lived through the terms of 12 other presidents.
“I think it’s incredible,” their youngest son, Peter Parker, said by phone from West Virginia. “They’re from a different breed. They were hardworking people, and that’s what they passed on to us — always be honest, and have integrity.”
His brothers include Bruce, the oldest, who was born in 1941 and now lives in Maryland; Douglas, who lives in South Carolina; and Roy and Paul, who both live in Bangor.
The Parkers have traveled around the state quite a bit, on motorcycles up to their 60s, and have hiked Mount Katahdin at least seven times, but they never strayed too far away.
They now live together in a quaint North Main Road home in Hampden and keep themselves busy doing this and that.
“I get up at 5 a.m. for no reason, and he gets up when he feels like it,” Dot said. “We always have breakfast together, and then we do whatever we feel like doing. Don is always looking for something to do.”
Don, who still drives and shovels snow, enjoys listening to the police and fire scanner. Dot, who got her license but never really drove, still cooks and attends Bible class.
“She never retired,” Don said.
“I don’t know of too many things that he’s stopped doing,” she said, even though he had a heart attack five years ago. “He’s been a good husband. They don’t come any better.”
Dot thanks God for her family’s good fortune.
“He’s blessed us our whole lives,” Dot said. “The kids have been wonderful, and Don always had a job. With God’s help, we do not have any complaints.”
Laughing together, loving together and prayer are the keys to their longevity, she said, adding that the years have just flown by.
“He’s 91 now. I can’t believe it,” Dot said.
Piecing together their lengthy past for this story is something the couple worked together to do. If one couldn’t remember something, the other one typically did.
Dot blushed when she told the story of their first kiss, which occurred in a Ford Model A Coupe in downtown Belfast more than 70 years ago.
“I stole a quick one,” Don said proudly.
But neither could remember how he asked her to marry him seven decades ago.
“I think it was in a letter,” Dot said.
“I would not ask you to marry me in a letter,” Don responded.
For their 50th wedding anniversary, all of their sons and extended family surprised them with a party, but for their 70th anniversary they have “not a thing” planned.
“I hope it’s quiet,” Dot said.
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