A Michigan couple who was married for 47 years died in the hospital from COVID-19 just two days before Thanksgiving, according to reports.
Leslie and Patricia McWaters were both hospitalized Nov. 24 when they were pronounced dead about the same time, NBC News reported.
“It’s beautiful, but it’s so tragic. Kind of like Romeo and Juliet,” their daughter, Joanna Sisk, told NBC affiliate WDIV. “One wouldn’t have wanted to be without the other.”
The couple first met at a local bar, and many years later they still enjoyed going there to dance occasionally, NBC reported. They had two distinct personalities that balanced each other for decades, family said.
Leslie McWaters — known to friends and family as “LD” — was a 75-year-old veteran of the United States Navy Reserve who worked as a truck driver. Reports said he was a happy man who had a joke for every occasion — with friends and family describing him as the king of one-liners.
His wife, Patricia, who was 78, spent 35 years as an emergency room nurse at Foote Allegiance Hospital in her hometown of Jackson, Michigan, where she was affectionately known as Pat.
Family described her as the leader of the family because of her serious disposition.
“Overall, it was give-and-take. They picked their battles,” Sisk told WDIV. “Those of us that know them, know that mom went first and said, ‘LD, it’s time to go!” the family wrote in the obituary.
The McWaterses had a 1959 Corvette that they would take to car shows and they also enjoyed playing cards and parlor games with other families, family revealed.
They are survived by two daughters, three grandchildren and six great-grandchildren, NBC reported.
“It’s tough enough to lose one parent, but this was the worst,” Sisk told WDIV. “Our entire family is completely devastated.”
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