Husband and wife die a day apart, relished 75 years of living in bliss
Anne Genevieve Carse was born in Brookline, the youngest of nine children. Donald Alvin Coudriet Sr. was from Knoxville, the second youngest among nine siblings.
They were sophomores when they met and became sweethearts at Pittsburgh’s South Hills High School. And just 18 when, on Dec. 11, 1941, four days after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, they secretly eloped and were married in a Catholic church in Oakland, Md. They kept the marriage hidden and lived apart for almost a year.
On Friday afternoon, attendants at Monaco Ridge, an assisted living facility in Reno, Nev., pushed together their single beds.
Ten minutes later Mrs. Coudriet died. Mr. Coudriet died less than 24 hours later.
They were 93. And except for that first year, and another when Mr. Coudriet enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1943 after his brother Theodore was killed in World War II, they were together for 75 years.
“Pearl Harbor caused them to get married. They saw the war coming and were worried about being apart,” said Lawrence Coudriet, the couple’s son. “What was important was for them to be together.”
From the late 1940s to 1961, Anne and Donald Coudriet ran a “mom and pop” corner grocery in Beltzhoover, at the intersection of Beltzhoover Avenue and Climax Street that they had bought from Donald’s father, Frederick. They renamed it “Don’s,” and it was widely known for Anne’s homemade ham salad.
“Everybody loved it,” said Ashley Coudriet, a granddaughter, who lives in Leechburg, Armstrong County. “She told me a man who delivered ice cream to the store taughther how to make it.”
Lawrence Coudriet’s memories of the store, where he worked as a young boy, are a bit more intimate.
“When I was 6 or 8 years old, I was given the job of putting the blue boxes in brown paper bags,” he remembered, laughing. “Those were Kotex boxes and, in those times, the idea was to hide the labeling.”
When the long store hours got too long, Mr. Coudriet sold the business to his brother Canice, who renamed it “Ken’s.” The latter sold it to his son Ken, who still operates it today.
Donald Coudriet used the GI Bill to earn a math degree at Duquesne University, worked as a teacher and then as a statistician and payroll administrator for the Pittsburgh Public Schools. Anne Coudriet took a job at the Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon University) Library.
After they retired, the couple moved to New Port Richey, Fla., and then to Reno, where they lived for the past 15 years.
In addition to his wife, Mr. Coudriet loved “golfing, joking [and] magic coin tricks,” according to an obituary written by Ashley Coudriet.
“Theyliked to golf, square dance and played cards, the kind of things older people like to do,” Ms. Coudriet said. “They had a really deep faith and were really committed to their marriage. It was a lesson that was always right in front of me — God and family. It’s what they taughtus.”
The Coudriets are also survived by two sons, Donald Jr. of Reno, and Lawrence of Sewickley; five grandchildren; and 14 greatgrandchildren.
A private memorial service for family will be held later this summer in Reno. Donations in the couple’s memory can be made to Pittsburgh Promise, https://pittsburghpromise. and to the Carnegie Mellon University Library, http:// www.library.cmu.edu/ about/support.
Don Hopey: dhopey@postgazette.com, 412-263-1983, or on Twitter @donhopey