Knowing their love has defied the odds made Hazel and Carl “Shorty” Richner’s 70th wedding anniversary last week all the more meaningful.

Hazel Ann Lingle and Carl Blaine Richner married Saturday, June 23, 1956, in a ceremony performed by the Rev. W.G. McVicker at the Christian and Missionary Alliance parsonage in Bellefonte. Last Tuesday, they marked 70 years since they said “I do.”

“We didn’t have a big wedding or anything,” Hazel said. “We just had somebody stand for us and had a little get together afterwards.”

She was 18, he was 19 — two teenagers beginning a life they could not have fully imagined. Seventy years later, now 88 and 89, they are still together and still in love, something they often remind each other of with the chorus of “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You,” which is often heard sung in their home.

PHOTO PROVIDED Hazel and Carl “Shorty” Richner are pictured in a newspaper clipping which announced their marriage on June 23, 1956.

The couple met shortly after Carl joined the U.S. Navy, when Hazel was still in school. She was walking with a friend and neighbor when they first crossed paths on the street.

“Him and his buddy were riding around town,” she said. “They stopped and wanted us to go with them.”

Shorty asked her out, but missed the date to cut things off with another gal.

“I made a date with her, then I stood her up,” he said.

But that didn’t matter.

PHOTO PROVIDED Hazel and Carl Richner are pictured in this old photograph.

“I think we hit it off right away,” Hazel said, to his agreement. “It was love at first sight as the saying goes.”

Hazel said his uniform sold her. Shorty said he admired her work ethic.

It was only about a year before they decided to make it forever.

Over their 70 years together they raised four children, two daughters, Sharon Strunk and Judy Wallis, and two sons, Ronald “Butch” and Barry Richner.

The Richners said some of their favorite memories from those years were their trips together, particularly their visits to Wyoming to visit their daughter, Judy, and a memorable bus trip to Branson, Mo.

“I always wanted to go west, but I thought I’d never make it,” Hazel said.

Carl added that “everybody said that was the best trip they ever had.”

But of course, 70 years can’t be all sunshine and rainbows.

“We had our ups and downs, but we always worked them out,” Hazel said.

Asked the secret to 70 years of marriage, she said it was as simple as that.

HUNTER SMITH/THE EXPRESS Photographs of the Richners are laid our on a table in their home in Milesburg.

“We always work things out. If we had a fight, an argument or something, we always worked it out,” she said. “And love.”

“Yeah, I just listened and did everything she told me to do,” Shorty joked.

“Don’t believe that,” she said.

In all, the past 70 years, Shorty said, have been “wonderful.”

“I couldn’t have asked for any better,” he said.