Still room for surprises after 70 years of marriage
No one was more surprised than Nan Pendergrast when she opened a letter and found anniversary wishes from Barack and Michelle Obama inside.
“I had no idea how they found out,” said Pendergrast. “But it turned out our daughter told her congressman about it, and it went from there.”
Along with the surprise note from the White House, Pendergrast and her husband, Britt, are still reeling over the very idea of having been married for 70 years -- and having lived into their early 90s.
“We don’t know anyone who’s gone that far,” said Nan Pendergrast. "Sometimes I feel like a freak.”
Ask them if there’s a secret to staying together for so long, and the couple just laughs.
“You have to marry a saint,” said Nan, remembering that her father-in-law predicted the two would only make it about six months.
“We also like each other,” said Britt Pendergrast. “And that means a lot.”
The two met as teenagers who lived a few blocks from each other in Druid Hills. They dated for five years before tying the knot.
“Nan was a very popular girl who wasn’t about to settle down,” recalled Britt Pendergrast. “I was so skinny, I think she finally married me just to fatten me up.”
Together, the couple has led a life filled with family, adventure and social consciousness. They raised seven children in a rambling house on three acres adjacent to the Westminster Schools, where the youngsters attended high school and Nan taught for several years.
Britt, a conscientious objector who refused to fight in World War II, worked for 35 years in his father-in-law’s mattress business, but after retirement, he spent 11 years working for the Department of Natural Resources under the Carter administration. In the late 1950s, he built a sailboat piece by piece in the family’s basement.
Along with teaching, Nan was busy writing articles for the Atlanta Journal's Sunday magazine. She became deeply involved with the civil rights movement and worked with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta. On a less serious note, in 1964, she convinced her husband to appear with her on Groucho Marx’s TV game show. Nan, a Vassar grad, and Britt, a Georgia Tech and Emory alum, walked away with $1,300, and spent the windfall on a trip to Ireland.
The couple stays busy just keeping up with their 20 grandchildren, aged 13 to 48 years, and 20-plus great-grandchildren. A few years ago, Nan wrote and Britt photographed “Neighborhood Naturalist,” a colorful book that highlights the botanical wonders of their own backyard. The two are avid gardeners and nature-lovers who keep pairs of binoculars on the windowsill of their den to keep an eye on what’s happening outside.
Inside, they’re surrounded by a cozy collection of lifetime memories, many of which Nan has carefully documented in12 fat scrapbooks.
"Even though we never really left Atlanta," said Britt Pendergrast, "it's been a
very interesting life."
"Milestones" covers significant events and times in the lives of metro Atlantans. Big or small, well-known or not -- tell us of a Milestone we should write about. Send information to hm_cauley@yahoo.com; call 404-514-6162; or mail to Milestones, c/o Jamila Robinson, 223 Perimeter Center Parkway N.E., Atlanta, GA 30346.
