THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 14, 1996 TAG: 9602130109
SECTION: ISLE OF WIGHT CITIZEN PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Linda McNatt
LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines
Some call it ``the greatest love affair.''
Tom and Hilda Hearn call it the result of acceptance of each other and the circumstances surrounding them, devotion to home and family and their willingness never to fence inthe other.
``He has always been willing to kiss me goodbye and let me go,'' Hilda says, smiling.
Add to that a little tenderness and a good sense of humor, and you have a recipe for a happy marriage. The good Lord willing, according to Tom, the Hearns will celebrate their 50th anniversary Aug. 24.
I had tucked away this tidbit of information about a love affair, handed over, like many others, by a reader who enjoys reading about people in this column. I saved it for a special day.
Expecting something out of the ordinary, I found just the opposite. This couple, after so many years, agree it's the everyday things that make a love affair, the hills and valleys combined with the rolling plains.
``Keep it simple,'' Tom says. ``I love Hilda. She loves me. We tell each other all the time. The most important thing I have in my life is Hilda. She offers freedom, serenity, peace of mind, joy of living.''
Now, if you can't wrap that up in a Hallmark and send it . . .
The Smithfield couple met when Hilda was still a 14-year-old high school student in Franklin. She had a date that afternoon, she recalls, to ride bikes with Tom's best friend.
Curious about the girl his friend was seeing, Tom, who lived in Suffolk then and was three years older than Hilda, showed up in his '37 Plymouth. He was bold enough to ask Hilda if she wanted a ride in his car. She fell off the bike. Tom took advantage.
``Well, you've hurt your knee,'' he remembers saying. ``I guess you'll ride with me now.''
``I still said no,'' Hilda recalls.
Eventually, they did get together, dating for a few months before Tom joined the Army Air Corps and served three years during World War II. On the rare occasions when he was home on leave, he says, he always called her.
``I knew a good thing when I saw it,'' he says, a lingering twinkle in his eye.
Nearly four years after they first met and just a few months after Tom got home from the service, they married. Their first son, Tom Jr., was born 13 months later. Three more boys followed.
In the early years, Tom spent much of his time on the road, working for a Suffolk-based furniture store that had 10 other stores. Today, he says, when somebody compliments him on having raised fine sons, he gives his wife the credit.
In 1979, Tom decided to open his own business. Hilda already was doing her own thing.
``I was always a very dependent person,'' she says. ``I depended on my parents to tell me what to do, and I did it. Then, for the first 25 years, I depended on Tom. I never even wrote checks. I finally decided I wanted to be another person.''
Tom must have decided he liked that person just as well. He encouraged her through training to become a counselor to families experiencing problems with alcohol and drug abuse.
Together, the Hearns weathered the opening of the family business - Hearn Furniture in Smithfield. They weathered Hilda's dedication to the job she retired from at Maryview Hospital five years ago, her battle with cancer and, later, bypass surgery.
If Tom has a favorite quote he's repeated many times over the years, it would be: ``Lord, Hilda, don't leave me now.''
Do they argue? Ask Hilda.
``Sometimes we get a little loud, but we're communicating.''
She has been the rock of the family, he says. He has always been giving and loving, she says. She reminds him of the holiday or special event, tells him what she wants, lets him know where to get it. He does the rest.
She quit smoking after bypass surgery. He still smokes. She lets him. But he opens a door or window and sits across the room from her when he does.
She wanted a dog. He didn't. She found a misfit - locked up, she said, for ``unacceptable behavior'' at the pound. She got the dog and named him Boozer. Although Tom swears the local vet who tends the animal could maintain his practice on two more Boozers, he worries more than Hilda if the dog gets out the front door. He had the back yard fenced in.
And he accepts the teasing he gets when acquaintances comment that the ``HH & TH'' on the license plate of the burgundy Cadillac they drive means ``Hilda's husband, Tom Hearn.''
She's a special person, but not out of the ordinary. So's he.
Their eldest son, Tom Jr., says: ``Mama deserves medals. Daddy does, too.''
Here it is.
The Citizen's unofficial Valentine of the Year award goes to Tom and Hilda Hearn.
``Our acceptance level stays high,'' he says.
``I always tell him that he's entitled to his wrong opinion,'' she says. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by LINDA McNATT
Tom and Hilda Hearn dated for four years before marrying.
by CNB