On Friday, they reached rarefied air as a couple, celebrating their 75th wedding anniversary. To mark the occasion, an event honoring the nonagenarian pair’s nuptials was held at Ogden’s Gardens Assisted Living.

“We’re the ‘Last of the Mohicans,'” Gladys told the Standard-Examiner with a chuckle.

Indeed, despite having both come from multi-sibling households, Hap and Gladys are now the last living members of their respective families. However, both their partnership and the family that they’ve created together endure.

The roots of that partnership were planted when the two were in grade school together during the 1930s. Romance came further down the line.

Photo supplied, Gardens Assisted Living

“We didn’t start dating until the last half of our senior year in high school,” Gladys recounted. “We were close friends, but we weren’t a couple until the last half.”

Added Hap: “(People in our friend group) never paired off, or very few paired off, really. I guess when I went away for the service, and when I came back for the first furlough, I think it was then we knew what we wanted to do. I think we missed each other. It caused a lot of phone calls.”

Just before graduation in 1945, during the waning days of World War II, Hap was drafted into the Army. Meanwhile, Gladys went off to college in Iowa. Despite that forced separation and the many phone calls that were exchanged, though, the two didn’t immediately marry upon their reunion.

“We agreed that we would not get married until after I had finished college, because it just really never felt that I would ever complete my college if I didn’t do it while I was in the swing of it,” Gladys said. “So, we actually ended up being a couple for four years before we got married.”

Gladys ultimately settled into a managerial role in food services at a college in South Dakota, while Hap owned and operated service stations. They also raised four children. All the while, they sought adventure through travel.

Photo supplied, Gardens Assisted Living

As Hap sees it, his wife’s willingness to explore North America with him has been one of the keys to their long-lasting marriage.

“I was a railroad kid … so, I traveled a lot — free, wherever I went. Twelve years old, went to Colorado. Thirteen years old, went to Colorado on my own. I went to work the shipyards in Portland,” he said.

“I traveled a lot. I enjoyed it. And she really took to that. So, we took a lot of trips, just with the kids and ourselves. Sometimes not far, but she was willing to go. She’d just pack up, load the kids up, and we’d go camping, traveling, rent trailers.”

For her part, Gladys cited the examples set by her parents and grandparents as an important factor in her approach to maintaining a long, happy marriage.

“My mother had a habit of being tardy. … And I asked my dad once — and this was after they’d been married for years and years and years — I said, ‘Daddy, doesn’t it kind of get to you that Mother is always tardy?’ And he said, ‘If I didn’t love her so much, it probably would.’

“They were so devoted to each other, but not to the exclusion of us kids. So, what a marvelous example I had growing up.”

The Links also noted that, outside of a handful of minor political disagreements, they were often of one mind, right down to the meals they ate each day.

After retirement, the two moved to Arizona, where they spent more than two decades. They had also purchased a motorhome, which they used to see the country together and to visit family living in other states.

It was their earlier trips from South Dakota to California that eventually led them to Northern Utah. Having passed through the area several times over the years and, eventually, after giving Ogden a monthlong trial in their motorhome, they decided to make it their next home.

Between Farr West and Ogden, Hap and Gladys have lived in the area for 22 years now, and they plan on being here still when their 100th birthdays roll around.

To that end, they don’t have any revelatory information or big secrets for living long, healthy lives. At least, nothing that parents, doctors, et al. aren’t already encouraging people to do en masse.

“We’ve been consciously and unconsciously taking pretty good care of ourselves,” Gladys said of their longevity.

Said Hap: “Bicycle, walking, hiking, walking the beach, what have you, walking the side of the mountain. … Just being active, I think.”

Having a great person to do those things with probably doesn’t hurt, either.