The key to a 71-year marriage? 'Don't pay any attention to him'

NORWALK — A refrigerator or a diamond ring? That was the decision Arvella Charlier faced more than 70 years ago when her future husband, Bill, proposed to her. "He asked me if I wanted a diamond ring or a refrigerator," Arvella said. "I told him I wanted the refrigerator. Twenty-five years later, I got the diamond. We had a lot of common sense back then." Bill and Arvella Charlier were married Aug. 23, 1950, in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, and will celebrate their 71st anniversary later this month. Bill is 90 and Arvella is 89. He was 18 and she was 17 when they met. "My parents had a garage and they sold Hudsons," Arvella said. "Bill came to our house to pick up a part. There was this 6-foot, blue-eye, blonde-hair guy standing there." And the rest, as they say, is history. The couple have three children, Gloria, Bill and Donna; five grandchildren, four great-grandchildren and one great-great grandchild. So what is the key to maintaining a 71-year marriage? "Don't pay any attention to him," Arvella said with a laugh. "Let it roll off your back." Added Gloria, who lives in Milan: "And my dad, on his part, says he can't hear anything." "He refuses to get hearing aids ... the secret is don't get any hearing aides," Arvella said. The two have lived in four different states. "We moved like 23 different times," Arvella said. "We moved for his work. He has an engineering background." The two now live in Shaker Village on Cleveland Road in Norwalk. "I said to my husband, 'I can't believe we are going to have a 70-year-old daughter,'" Arvella said. Would they do it all over again? "Yes. I would marry the same guy because we have each other trained," she said. Arvella said she is going to have surgery Monday to have a new valve put in her heart. "The heart doctor told me, 'Get it done now.' My heart is working too hard." With the operation, and work on her heart, will she then decide to listen to her husband? "No," Arvella said with another laugh.