After 70 years of marriage, love still rules

Marvin Dwore was 17 years old when he met the love of his life.

The soon-to-be graduate of Mont Pleasant High School was attending a party at the Phi Sigma Delta house at Union College when he was introduced to a young woman from Albany named Estelle. She was attending the soirée with another prospective Union freshman, but Marvin found himself entranced by her beauty.

“We met, I took one look at her and that’s when the romance started,” he recalled Wednesday.

Four years later, they married. Since that time, the Dwores’ marriage has extended through a dozen U.S. presidencies, the admission of two new states to the union and the passing of one millennium.

Last month, the Dwores celebrated the 70th anniversary of their wedding at Albany’s Congregation Ohav Sholom in 1940.

The couple, both 92, have been together since that date, save for a year when Marvin was deployed with the U.S. Army in Japan during the Korean War in 1951.

The longevity of their marriage is a subject of praise and amazement for many.

But for the Dwores, their seven decades together isn’t as extraordinary as their love for each other. They both considered their 50th anniversary a milestone, but everything else has come naturally, just like the day they first laid eyes on each other.

“He’s always treated me with great love and great respect,” Estelle said, seated close to Marvin in their Niskayuna home. “He’s treated me like a queen.”

The Dwores’ romance budded out of their encounter at Union in 1935 but didn’t fully blossom until four years later. Distance proved to be a spoiler at first, considering Estelle was attending school at New York State College for Teachers nearly 20 miles away in Albany.

Back then, neither had a car. Their dates were reliant upon squeezing into a vehicle bound for one city or the other.

Still, there was something in Marvin’s first smile that kept Estelle interested. And Marvin refused to give up on the girl who captivated his attention every time she walked in the room.

Marvin proposed to Estelle in October 1939, just four months after graduating from Union. He left the college with a degree, as president of Phi Sigma Delta and with the girl of his dreams on his arm.

After they wed on March 31, 1940, the Dwores honeymooned for two weeks in Manhattan and Atlantic City.

Estelle recalls watching shows together and walking on the Jersey shore.

They had a picture taken on one of those strolls. The sepia-tinted photo shows them arm-in-arm as they walk confidently along the boardwalk.

Marvin is smiling broadly, while Estelle wears a plaid coat and a hat with a feather in it. To date, she still has both.

“I saved it through the years,” she said of the coat. “And it still fits too.”

Marvin went on to attend Tufts University and became a dentist. Estelle gave birth to the couple’s sons, Richard and Bob.

They settled in Niskayuna in 1963, moving into their home the day before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Marvin spent more than 45 years practicing dentistry before retiring.

The couple has been members of the Shaker Ridge Country Club for 62 years and still play golf there on occasion. They’re both spry and intend to spend many more anniversaries together.

Their trick to a happy marriage? Simple, quips Marvin cracking a smile: “You’ve got to be lucky and pick the right person,” he said. “Then it’s easy from there.”