Fred and Margaret, of Clifton, N.J., died one month apart during the winter.
The couple, whose last name their children asked not to divulge, met in high school and were married for 69 years. They were inseparable.
Death was not about to change that.
They made arrangements years ago: Margaret, 87, would take the last grave in the family’s plot at St. Nicholas Cemetery in Lodi, N.J. Fred, 88, a devout Catholic who was born some 30 years before the Vatican lifted its ban on cremation in 1963, decided his ashes would be buried by her head.
Perhaps, if there were space, Fred would not have chosen to be cremated, his daughter Donna said. But there was room for only one.
“I think he just wanted to be with my mom and that’s what he had to do in order for him to be with her,” she said.