Coronavirus: Couple married 73 years dies hours apart; one of them from COVID-19

Credit: DaytonDailyNews

They spent almost their entire life together even until the end.

Wilford and Mary Kepler both tested positive for coronavirus. Mary Kepler, 92, was diagnosed on April 8, but was quarantined at home until Wilford Kepler, 94, fell. Then they were both admitted, and he also tested positive, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported.

Workers at the Milwaukee hospital pushed the couple's beds together so they could hold hands, their obituary said.

They were allowed to be in the same room because they were both sick, WTMJ reported.

They both died on April 18. Wilford Kepler was first. Mary Kepler died six hours later.

The cause of death for Mary Kepler was coronavirus, but Wilford Kepler died from a traumatic head injury from his fall, the Journal-Sentinel reported.

They went to the same high school, and they wrote to each other when he was drafted before he graduated in 1943. They got married when he returned home in 1946.

Before their deaths, they spoke with family on the phone and by video calls.

Their granddaughter, Natalie Lameka, called her grandparents, "the glue that holds us together," in an interview with WTMJ.

The family told WTMJ that they do not know where they were exposed to the coronavirus.

Read about the Keplers' life together here.

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