Marriage of Newlyweds, Ages 96 and 95, Questioned

In some ways, Rebecca Wright doesn't understand all the fuss over her 96-year-old mother's recent marriage. After all, she says, "Anybody who wants to get married must have a little dementia."

The courts, though, and some of Wright's other relatives aren't amused. And the future for newlyweds Edith Hill, 96, and Eddie Harrison, 95, is very much uncertain.

 

The two have been companions for more than a decade after a Hollywood-style meet-cute - they struck up a conversation while standing in line for lottery tickets, with one of the tickets turning into a $2,500 winner. They married earlier this year, with a 95-year-old church elder presiding over the ceremony, no less.

 

"I guess I wanted company," Hill said in an interview, explaining why she married. "I wanted somebody I could help, and they could help me. ... We were both single. My husband was gone. His wife was gone. We became the best of friends."

 

Robin Wright, Hill's granddaughter, said the relationship is more romantic than Hill's explanation allows.

 

"You catch them kissing all the time," she said. "They're actually in love. Really in love. ... I know he's part of the reason she gets up every morning."

 

Legally, though, the wedding has been problematic. Hill has been declared legally incapacitated for several years. A judge said at a hearing last month that he believes Wright - co-guardian over her mother along with Rebecca Wright's sister who opposed the marriage - acted improperly by taking her mother to get married without the court's permission.

 

Cary Cuccinelli, representing the sister who opposed the marriage, Patricia Barber, said at last month's hearing that the wedding occurred without other family members' knowledge, and that it complicated the matter of how to eventually distribute Hill's estate, which includes property on the edge of Old Town Alexandria, worth about $475,000, according to real estate assessments.

 

"Legally, Mr. Harrison now has a right to a portion of Ms. Hill's estate," she told the judge, saying it also complicates decisions over who will care for Hill, and where she will live.

 

While the judge, James Clark, found the marriage to have been improper, he also worried that breaking up the couple could "create a circumstance in Ms. Hill's life that she doesn't deserve."

 

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Marriage of newlyweds, ages 96 and 95, questioned