Black Love: Couple Celebrate 82 Years of Happy Married Life

Duranord Veillard will turn 108 on Saturday while his wife of 82 years, Jeanne, turns 105 in May. The couple plan to celebrate a milestone few others will see with family, friends and well-wishers at their home, where they live with a daughter, Marie Eveillard.

The son of a fisherman, Duranord Veillard was born Feb. 28, 1907, in St. Louis du Sud and grew up in Les Cayes in southern Haiti.

He studied law and lived in Port-au-Prince. The couple tied the knot in November 1932 — the same month Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president in landslide victory over Herbert Hoover and Groucho Marx performed on radio for the first time.

Duranord and Jeanne Veillard raised five children. They moved to the United States in 1968 after Duranord lost his job as a judge and was awarded a visa to visit the U.S. He settled in Spring Valley. One by one, family members joined him.

Jeanne Veillard sat quietly next to her husband, wearing a white linen dress and a pair of pink slippers. They patted each other on the hand. How did the happy couple meet?

"I found him in the street," she joked in French Creole, making the room full of relatives laugh.

Rockland County doesn't keep records of its oldest person, but Veillard's family believes Duranord and Jeanne are the oldest married couple in the area. They have 12 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.

Veillard also let The Journal News in on his secret for living a long and healthy life: "That's God," he said in French Creole.

Veillard starts his day at 5 a.m. and does five to seven pushups. For breakfast, he has a cup of tea, oatmeal and fresh fruit. Lunch and dinner consist of fish and fresh vegetables. The centenarians nap early and often.

God is great...........




















Culled from USA Today