Daisy (Dee) and Charles (Chuck) Tucker say their first meeting was love at first sight, and now they’re going on 56 years of marriage this September. 

Dee met Chuck in 1968 while visiting her brother and his wife in Columbus, Georgia. 

“This was during the Vietnam War era,” she said. “My brother introduced me to my husband, who was stationed at Fort Benning with him. He told me, ‘this is the only guy I will introduce you to here, and he is so good, so kind, and so morally upright.’” 

Her brother was right in wanting to introduce them, as the two met on June 28, he proposed on July 13, she turned 18 on August 26, and they got married September 6, 1968. They moved to Green River early on in their marriage. 

“I haven’t regretted it a day,” she said. “I came home from my first date with him and my sister-in-law asked how it was, and I said, ‘I’m going to marry him.’” 

“He was handsome, he was so sweet, a little shy, just talking to him, it was so easy. It felt like I had known him for forever,” she said. “To this day, he still remembers what I wore on that first date.” 

Dee said she loves Chuck’s crazy sense of humor, though she jokes about his sarcasm being the one thing she’d change about him. 

“He always comes off like he’s grumpy, and yet he would give you the heart out of his chest if you needed it. He’s always like Mr. Tough Guy, but he’s not. He’s really a marshmallow, I mean, he cries at ‘Little House On The Prairie.’ He doesn’t lie, and he doesn’t like anybody to lie to him. I still love him. Oh, I get mad at him, of course. I mean, you know, I’m the only perfect one in the relationship,” she joked. 

What Chuck loves most about Dee is that she’s a kind and giving person, and also a little crazy. 

“That’s how he sees me,” Dee said. “And he knows that I just love our family so much. Our family has been everything to me.” 

It’s All About Family

Chuck and Dee had two children together, and consider their children’s spouses their own, as well. 

“We had two children, and now we have four children with the two we hauled home, and the two they hauled home,” Dee said. “We have six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren, and life is great.” 

Family has been the heart of their relationship, both having been raised in large families. 

“We both came from a family of ten,” she said. “My mom didn’t work, and his mom didn’t work. I went to nursing school but once the babies came and everything, I really didn’t pursue it. And that was something we discussed and decided on. We just decided that that’s how we both were raised, and it just fit in with what we wanted to do.” 

Chuck worked at General Chemical, now TATA Chemicals, and he owned a gas station in town, and while Dee worked on and off, she found she was happiest being a mother at home. 

“We didn’t have all the boats and all of the other stuff that second income brings, but our house was always full of kids and laughter and just that family unit. That’s what we had wanted,” she said. “I didn’t work outside of the home and become an executive, but I became a mama. That was so much more.” 

When the kids grew up and moved out of the house, Dee said that it was tough on her. She filled her time with volunteer work, as Chuck was still working. 

“That empty nest syndrome was alive and well,” she said. 

Doing Things Together

Despite missing their kids, Dee and Chuck have always had each other. After their kids left home, they found more time to be together. Dee believes doing things together has been a major factor in the success of their marriage. 

“You can’t do things separate all the time. You’ve got to have something that you do together as a couple, even if it’s going to dinner with friends or sitting on the couch watching a movie with a bucket of popcorn. You just have to keep that going. And if we don’t feel like getting up one morning and getting dressed, we sit in our jammies and drink coffee and talk.” 

After nearly 56 years of marriage, Dee and Chuck know that love goes through phases and changes. They have found it’s important to look back at all those years and remind themselves what it was about this person that they loved in the first place. 

“Love goes through the seasons. You have to know how to change with those seasons of marriage. It’s a bumpy road, it’s not a super highway. I don’t care how you’re going, boy, there’s going to be a snag or a bump,” she said. 

Looking Back with Happiness

As their love has gone through the seasons, they have found that life goes by very quickly. On their 50th wedding anniversary, Dee and Chuck renewed their vows, and the occasion made them realize just how quick 50 years went by. 

“That morning, he says to me, ‘I don’t think it’s 50 years.’ And I said, ‘it is 50 years.’ And he goes, ‘honey, it just doesn’t seem like that. It’s maybe 20 years or so.’ And I thought, well, I’m going to take that as a compliment,” she laughed. “I think life- where’s it gone? I mean, we participated in it, but yet, where did it go?”

It’s rewarding for Chuck and Dee to look back through the years and feel happy with how everything turned out together. 

“And we are happy. We’ve had a good life. I can’t think of anything I’d change. And I can’t think of anything I’d change about him. Well, that sarcasm,” she joked. “But yeah, he’s a good guy.”