2003-08-31|11:09 p.m.
With last kiss, widow dies at spouse's coffin
08/22/03
CAROL ROBINSON
News staff writer
After 64 years of marriage, Mary Evancho Laborde couldn't bear to let her husband go.
She said that just before she leaned over Raymond Laborde's casket at his funeral this week to kiss him goodbye a final time.
But the sorrow was too much; the 89-year Hueytown woman's heart stopped and she died right there.
On Thursday, Raymond, 88, and Mary were buried together in much the same way they lived - side by side, only inches apart.
"It's almost like a fairytale, a sad fairytale," said the Rev. Jack Hendricks Jr. of First United Methodist Church in Hueytown. "You don't see many people who live together as long as they did that go out together.
"I would say it was God's grace."
Their love story spanned six and half decades, beginning when Raymond first spotted Mary at a Fairfield bakery where she worked. He was immediately smitten, but she was popular and he had to work for her affections. He used to hide in the bushes when she had other dates, friends said, to assess his competition.
But persistence, and charm, won out.
"He was a very romantic person," said niece Pat Evancho. "He didn't mind telling you she was as beautiful as the day they got married."
They were separated only once, when Raymond, who later retired from U.S. Steel, served in the Navy during World War II. Mary gave birth to their only child, John Raymond, while her husband was away.
He was of French descent and attended the Methodist church in Hueytown; she was Czechoslovakian and a member of St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church in Brookside.
Religion was important to both of them and they embraced each other's beliefs, alternating between the two churches every other week.
In their younger days, they enjoyed traveling and spending time with their son and grandchildren, Chris LaBorde and Jennifer Ragsdale.
In recent years, Raymond worked in the yard and fixed broken toys for the neighborhood kids. She kept a meticulous home and cooked three full meals for Raymond each day. They kept to a routine, getting their hair cut on Tuesdays, mopping on Wednesdays and grocery shopping on Thursday.
"It was exactly what a marriage should be," Hendricks said.
On Saturday, Raymond cut the grass and asked for liver for lunch, which Mary obliged. His heart gave out later that day. In the days that followed, Mary tried to remain stoic but her heart, too, finally gave out at Raymond's funeral on Tuesday.
"I believe if she were writing the script, which we don't write the script, she would have chosen to go with him," said the Rev. John Simmons, also of the Methodist church in Hueytown.
The Labordes' granddaughter, Jennifer Ragsdale, said she can see beyond her grief to the blessing.
"They wanted to be together forever," she said, "and they are."