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Betty and Sidney Thomas celebrate 75 years of marriage. They met during World War II
Betty and Sidney Thomas of Bradenton are the rare couple able to celebrate a diamond anniversary, marking 75 years of marriage.
They eloped Sept. 29, 1945, when Sidney, now 93, was a U.S. Army infantryman. Betty, now 91, was still a high school student in Alabama.
Victory over Japan Day had been declared less than two months earlier.
Sidney had been training for the invasion of Japan when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, bringing an end to the war. He believes that those atomic bomb attacks saved his life, and those of many others.
Instead of fighting in Japan, he was assigned to the United States Constabulary in Austria, as a member of the occupation and security force in the U.S. Occupation Zone after the Nazi war machine had been defeated.
As such, he had arrest powers for civilian and military offenders. One of his more unusual jobs was to check passengers’ papers on the Orient Express train.
After the war, he attended Howard College — now Samford University — in Birmingham, Ala., on the GI Bill with the intention of studying dentistry, but he soon changed his major to journalism. It would prove to be his lifetime career.
Betty recalls that she met Sidney’s sister first. When Sidney heard his sister was going to a birthday party, he asked if he could come along, too. That’s where Betty and Sidney met.
Sidney was smitten right away.
“She was very pretty. She is still pretty,” he said of his wife.
The marriage produced five children, Steve, Jan, Russ, Clay and Dee, who in turn gave Betty and Sidney 10 grandchildren, and the grandchildren contributed 15 great-grandchildren to the family.
“I was the mama. I had five children. We have lived everywhere, we moved often and we had all these kids,” Betty said.
The couple say they would not change a thing.
“I love my family. I like having us all together. It gives you a good life when your children are all good, well and healthy,” Betty said.
Sidney says that Betty has not only been a good mother, but an understanding wife who forgave him for the suppers he missed while chasing breaking news.
Sidney was part of the Columbus Enquirer news team in 1955 that won a Pulitzer Prize for public service for its coverage of municipal corruption and organized crime in Phenix City, Ala.
Among his other stops were two stints at the Bradenton Herald and one at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He finished his newspaper career with an ownership stake in the North River News in Manatee County.
Their youngest daughter, Dee Smith, says her parents complement each other perfectly, and that family is their highest priority.
“When you marry into the family, you are not an in-law. You just become of another of their children,” Smith said.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the couple won’t be having an anniversary party.
But their children, all except Jan who has passed away, are in town for the anniversary, and one other thing.
“We always watch the first Alabama football game together. It’s a family tradition,” Smith said.
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