Daily lunch dates were the norm for retired mechanic Clarence Purvis and his wife Carolyn.
‘They were unbelievable,’ restaurant owner Joyce James told CBS News. ‘I mean you could tell that they adored each other.’ They ate together at Smith’s restaurant in Reidsville, Georgia six days a week for years until Carolyn passed away.
Clarence told CBS News, ‘She’s a perfect wife if ever there was one.’ “Ain’t nobody loved each other more than we did.’ ‘Everyone said it.’
Clarence could continue to eat lunch with his wife even if she had died.
Clarence would bring a photograph of his wife to their restaurant so he could eat lunch with her after going to the cemetery every morning at the age of 93 and kneeling down to kiss her.
‘I wish you could come home with me, baby.’ He’d tell her portrait, ‘I’d trade places with you.’
Carolyn and Clarence met in 1948 and have been together ever since.
‘Nobody loved each other more than me and my wife,’ Clarence told WTOC 11. ‘I desired what she desired, and she desired what I desired.’
Clarence would return to his wife’s gravesite after lunch. He’d go four or five times a day until he couldn’t drive anymore.
When Smith’s Eatery closed, he just found a new restaurant where he could have lunch while looking at a picture of his wife. ‘We attempted to cook for him or take him, but it didn’t work out. His daughter Dianne Knight stated, ‘It wasn’t nothing but the Dairy Queen.’
From there, the story just gets more romantic. Their love lamp can be found inside his home.
A lamp that is always lit to remind him of his wife’s and his eerie glow of love.
‘This here, that lamp ain’t never turned off,’ Clarence explained. ‘That light was switched on and hasn’t been turned off since.’
After a photo of Clarence and his wife at the restaurant goes public, the tale about Clarence and Carolyn’s love was picked up by the media, making their love story known all over the world.
Clarence died in 2021 and was reunited with his wife in heaven.
‘He became famous all over the world only to show his love for his wife and how much she meant to him,’ Dianne Knight said.
‘And that was our atmosphere our whole lives,’ son Dale Purvis stated.
Clarence’s children are grateful that their parents’ story has been shared.
‘That is exactly what the world today requires. ‘The kind of love they had for each other,’ Dianne explained.
They are much more content now that they are back together.
‘You barely saw him grin in the pictures after Momma died.’ Unlike before, when we had images of him. ‘But now he’ll smile all the time,’ Dale predicted.
In the video below, learn more about this unique love tale.