Jack and Barrie Riday celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary on June 23 at their summer home in Michigan. The couple was married in 1941 in Winnetka, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, Barrie said. They met in high school.

“Not very many people get to celebrate 70 years,” she said. “That makes me 93!”

Jack is “only” 92. Barrie joked that she is always the oldest.

When asked the secret to the longevity of their marriage, she said, “We love each other — I can’t imagine anything else.”

The couple has lived in their Mercer Island home near the high school for 54 years. The Ridays spend the months of June through October in northern Michigan at her late father’s cottage on Glen Lake.

Barrie said her husband was in sales his entire career, working the last 30 years for Olympic Medical Corp. He retired over 20 years ago.

After high school, Jack attended Cornell University, earning a degree in engineering. Barrie attended Beloit College, graduating with a degree in biology.

Of course, the Ridays have seen many changes on the Island.

“We live in Mercerwood Shore Club,” Barrie said. “At the time we moved there, there were no houses to the south of us at all, just woods,” she said.

Their children went to elementary school at Mercer Crest, which is no longer there. After Mercer Crest, they attended Islander Middle School and Mercer Island High School.

Barrie said her daughter, Roxanne, had a horse she kept at the Stevenson ranch. She would ride it up to their home and stake the horse in the front yard, much to her mother’s dismay, for fear that the horse would destroy her grass. So she made Roxanne keep a bucket handy.

The couple plans to keep alternating between Mercer Island and their Michigan home for as long as they are able.

The Ridays have six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.