Rochester couple has had April 29 circled on the calendar 72 years

ROCHESTER - There will be no pomp, no biographical comic book, no avenue of maple trees lining the way to Michael's Restaurant and Lounge when Herb and Marna Kalman dine with family on Friday night.

Yet the Kalmans share a unique affinity with lovely Miss Catherine Middleton and His Royal Highness Prince William. The Kalmans also recited their marriage vows on April 29.

In 1939.

"They chose a good date," said Herb, 94.

Preparing to celebrate 72 years of marriage, Herb and his child bride, Marna, 90, were eager to share their good wishes, and a bit of advice. So their daughter, Beth Karon, a retired internist and fine artist, typed a letter on their behalf in January, and sent it off to Clarence House in London.

"Dear Prince and Ms. Middleton," Beth wrote, in part. "How exciting to hear that you will be married on our anniversary, our 72nd anniversary! We want to wish you both the many years of happiness we have experienced. Yours truly, Herb and Marna."

Beth tracked the letter and believes that it made it all the way to Clarence House before being returned to sender. Herb was disappointed.

"Even though we wouldn't be able to go to the wedding because of Marna's health," he said, thoughtfully, "we would have enjoyed an invitation."

The Kalmans grew up in Chicago. But they didn't know one another until invited to a dance thrown in honor of the parents of mutual friends. Marna arrived with another boy. She caught Herb's eye, "and we ended up dancing every dance together," she said. Herb remembers it the same way.

"The next day, she was going steady with me."

At their wedding, people whispered that it wouldn't last. Marna was just 19. "People thought we had to get married," Marna says, her tangerine lipstick-colored lips curving into a smile.

The prediction of a quick end to the marriage was a godsend for Herb. "That's the only way I could get Marna to say yes."

The marriage did last. They raised three children (sons Jerry and Ron live in California and Virginia, respectively). They were blessed with 10 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

Herb, who served as an Army Air Corps bomber pilot during World War II, returned home to work in the women's apparel trade. Marna was a homemaker with the difficult task, Herb said, of "being wife of me."

But Herb, whose father left the family when he was a little boy, vowed to be actively involved on the home front. "I pledged to myself that my kids would never grow up without a father," he said.

After retirement, Herb took up golf, which he played several times a week for 20 years. Aside from a heart attack in his 80s, he remains in good health. Marna was recently diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. In November 2009 -- "just in time for winter," Herb said -- they moved to Rochester, into a retirement community a few miles from Beth and her husband, cardiologist Barry Karon.

The Kalmans live independently, dropping by the kids' house for dinner once or twice a week, as they did last Monday. "Can I get you anything?" Herb asks Marna sweetly, as he cuts up her meat. She shakes her head.

They likely will not be watching Friday's televised frenzy. Too early. Besides, Marna already had her brush with royalty. While visiting London with her family more than six decades ago, a carriage passed by carrying two sisters. "They were young girls," Marna said of Queen Elizabeth II and the late Princess Margaret.

Just because they can't share their advice with the royals doesn't mean they can't share it with us. How have they made marriage work so nobly for so long?

Herb takes a minute before answering. "Mixed marriages, those between men and women," he quips, "are ... difficult. There are different attitudes between the male and the female, the way they look at life."

So?

"I bent to her every wish," he said.

Marna laughs. She has her own theory about their remarkable longevity. "We spent an awful lot of time together," she said. They traveled to Asia, Paris and New York on Herb's business trips, enjoyed boating, bowling and bridge, golf and tennis.

"It was love, I think, wasn't it?" Herb asks. "Yeah," Marna says.

Herb laughs. "She says, yeah."

It was indeed love, Beth believes. When Marna turned 80, she joined Beth on a getaway to an art camp. When Marna returned home to Herb, Beth said, "the look in each of their eyes was unbelievable. It was ... a twinkle. You know it immediately, but I've really never seen it in real life with real people.

"They'd been married 60 years then."

Gail Rosenblum • 612-673-7350 gail.rosenblum@startribune.com