Old-fashioned love

One couple's secret to weathering 70 years of ups and downs? Love, respect . . . and a woman's finely honed domestic skills.

By LAURA HEINAUER

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 14, 2000

TREASURE ISLAND -- Anne Levitt doesn't believe in living together before marriage.

She thinks jealousy has no place in a relationship, and doesn't necessarily believe the husband and wife have an equal stake in making a marriage work.

But she and Sol Levitt, now just a day away from celebrating their 70th wedding anniversary, do believe in love at first sight.

Sol was 15, shooting pool at a boys club in Chicago, when he saw the most beautiful woman he'd ever laid eyes on walk through the door.

"I told my cousin, "You are not going to believe this, but do you see that girl coming through the door? I'm gonna marry her,' " he said.

Anne, 89, shook with laughter as she listened to her husband, now 92, tell the story. She said it seemed like a century ago. It was 1923.

"I was only 13," Anne said. "He definitely made it his business to get to know me."

In seven decades of marriage, the couple shortened their last name from Levittino so that Sol could get a job at Sears Roebuck and Co., which did not hire Italians in 1922. They raised a son, Robert "Luckie" Levittino, 67, a retired Navy captain. Then, when Sol retired from Sears at age 58, the couple moved to Fort Lauderdale and began circling the world on cruises and vacations. Sol says it was his wife who made the marriage work.

"Eight words," he said. "She was always there when I needed her."

Anne said she never minded her role in the marriage, which son Luckie jokingly described as "rule with an iron fist."

"If he had to bring someone home for dinner, I could have food on the table in a few hours and everyone would be asking me for the recipe," she said. "I was the type of person that believed the woman needed to work harder on a marriage than the man."

But there came a time when Anne needed some help. Two years ago in 1998, Luckie moved his parents to an apartment on Treasure Island, blocks away from his house.

The couple had lived independently for 27 years in their Fort Lauderdale house, but in 1996 Anne fell while removing Cornish hens from the oven. She broke her back and suffered third-degree burns to the bottom half of her body.

Those injuries and his father's failing health brought Luckie and his wife, Debbie, to Fort Lauderdale three to four days a week. They wanted their parents to be happy, but four hours away was too risky, Debbie said.

"I put it in a way to them . . . I said, we're spending more and more time down here and with the business we really can't," she said. "I'd hate for something to happen to one of them. We didn't want them to have to deal with that on top of closing the home they'd had for 30 years."

Besides being closer to their son and having a housekeeper come once a week, the Levitts still live independently in Treasure Island. They have given up some of their favorite hobbies -- golf, line dancing and horseback riding -- but Anne still gets her hair and nails done every Wednesday and keeps an immaculately clean house. As for the 1996 accident, Anne had the Cornish hen mess cleaned up before a doctor ever arrived.

"We've slowed down since we came here because of problems with illness," Anne said. "But we're not bored. Not in the least bit."

How does she do it?

"We made it our business to love and respect one another," Anne said, smiling at her husband. "Even after 70 years, when he gets up in the morning he still says, "You're the prettiest girl in the world.' "

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