Married For 69 Years, They Die Together — Holding Hands
Image by Howard Handler
By Thea Glassman April 27, 2017
A Jewish couple married for 69 years died only minutes apart, hand in hand, last weekend.
Isaac Vatkin, 91, and Teresa Vatkin, 89, were both lying unresponsive in a Highland Park, Illinois hospital, when their grandchildren arranged them together so that they could hold hands.
“I didn’t want them to be scared,” their granddaughter Debbie Handler told the Daily Herald. “I thought maybe if they knew the other was there, it would help.”
Image by Howard Handler
Teresa died first, just 40 minutes before Isaac passed.
“Their love for each other was so strong, they simply could not live without each other,” their daughter, Clara Gesklin, said during the couple’s joint funeral service on Monday.
The couple’s love story began in their home country Argentina. The two lived far apart, and relied on sending letters back and forth during their early courtship. They moved to the United States after getting married, and settled in Skokie, Illinois, where Isaac ran a kosher meat distributor business, and Teresa was a manicurist.
“They were always in love, literally to the end. To the last second,” Rabbi Barry Schechter, said, during the couple’s service.
Thea Glassman is an Associate Editor at the Forward. Reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter at @theakglassman.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Dive In
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
Politics Meet America’s potential first Jewish second family: Josh Shapiro, Lori, and their 4 kids
- 4
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Jewish students, alumni decry ‘weaponization of antisemitism’ across country
-
Opinion I first met Netanyahu in 1988. Here’s how he became the most destructive leader in Israel’s history
-
Opinion Why can Harvard stand up to Trump? Because it didn’t give in to pro-Palestinian student protests
-
Culture How an Israeli dance company shaped a Catholic school boy’s life
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.