Elderly Couple Get Married 60 Years After Their First Engagement Was Called Off In 1963

Mar 27, 2023

Ed Sneckenberger and Priscilla (Troxell) Matheny were together for three years and engaged to get married until she got a letter in 1963 saying he could not marry her. After 60 years, and separate families with several grandkids for each of them, Sneckenberger and Matheny finally exchanged vows to live happily ever after.

In 1959, Sneckenberger and Matheny met at a local church in their hometown of Hagerstown, Maryland, and then dated for some years before he proposed to her in 1962. Their engagement was printed in the local newspaper and while thrilled to begin the next chapter of their lives, the couple kept a long-distance relationship.

Sneckenberger was completing his college degree at West Virginia University while Matheny was working as a secretary in their hometown a few hours away. Because he supported himself through college, Sneckenberger eventually realized that he was not ready to get hitched. So, he wrote Matheny a letter breaking off their engagement. She burned the letter, sold his ring, and resolved to move on without her first love.

Months after that heartache, Matheny met the widower Wally Matheny who became her husband in November 1963 and the father of her two children until his death in 1986. She never remarried and stayed in Hagerstown, devoting her time to church.

On the other hand, Sneckenberger worked on his academics and earned a doctorate that qualified him to teach at West Virginia University for nearly four decades. He also got married to another academic, Scottie Hansbrough, in 1968 and raised three children. In the months following his wife’s death in 2021, Sneckenberger, then in his 80s, had a thought to reach out to the woman he hurt 60 years earlier through Facebook but she deleted his requests and messages without reading them. 

Sneckenberger persisted in reaching out to Matheny and phoned her church to arrange a meeting but she continued to ignore him until she finally responded to his messages to get rid of him once and for all. They agreed to meet in Hagerstown for coffee on Easter weekend in 2022.

After two hours, Matheny thought it was the end of it and declined Sneckenberger's invitation to join him for the Easter Sunday service. Speaking with People, she said that she cried after that coffee meeting and wanted to avoid him. 

"I had a pretty bad evening with tears because I think I realized that there was still some love there for him," Matheny said.

Instead, he showed up at her house that Sunday and spent that afternoon with her. Surprisingly, before he returned home, he also asked for her hand in marriage again but she said no. However, Sneckenberger pursued to win her heart back and drove from West Virginia to Hagerstown to see her on weekends. 

“We still had some spark," Matheny told Echo-Pilot. "But I didn’t plan to get married again and was not leaving Hagerstown." 

To prove his sincerity, Sneckenberger packed his bags, left West Virginia, and returned to Hagerstown to be with Matheny. By June 2022, the pair got engaged again and then exchanged vows on Dec. 7, 2022, at the very church where they first met.

"I shouldn't have been looking for something else in my life," Sneckenberger told NPR. "But once I felt I had to find this lady, and say I was sorry, it changed everything." 

As newlyweds in their 80s, Sneckenberger and Matheny spend their time going to church, watching movies and symphony concerts, or going on overnight trips. 

After many years, the flame kept burning for Ed Sneckenberger and Priscilla Matheny! What can you say about their rekindled love? Do you know someone in the same boat who could relate to this tale? Then pass this story along!