Steve and Marge Darby of Ayer Road spent a recent snowy afternoon reflecting on their 61 years of marriage.
Steve and Marge Darby celebrate at the wedding of a Bromfield alumna in 1997. (Courtesy photo)
Press: Tell us when and how you met.
Steve: We have been married 61 years next month. We met at college, at Hofstra, long before it became a university.
Marge: We were put together, by my roommate and [Steve’s] friends. Friends of ours had decided we would be a good couple or some such thing. And I was furious. Because my roommate had put me up with an assortment of very peculiar people. I had told her no more. I was not going to meet any more of her kind, gentle friends. She said OK, no more.
So what they did was they said we were all going to a Chinese restaurant, and we’d meet on the corner and carpool. So we went to the corner and they all jumped into their various cars and left the two of us on the corner, on purpose. And my roommate yelled, as she jumped in the car, “Marge, meet Steve. Steve, take it from here!”
Steve: I had seen her in the window of a diner where we used to go to eat. I said to my friend, “Who is that?” And he said, “She lives right around the corner from you.” But we still hadn’t met until this arrangement. That was the start of it. We joke that we ran away from home together.
Marge: We were rather young by today’s standards. [But] we were self-supporting, both on scholarships. It wasn’t as if we were entering into a fantasy about what life was like. When he asked me to marry him, he sat down and said, “Look, this is it. This is what you’re paying, and this is what I’m paying, and if we lived together it would be cheaper.” So that’s why we got married.
A big man on campus
Press: What did you first like about each other?
Steve: She was the most attractive girl I’d ever seen. And then I found out she lived around the corner, which doesn’t say much about my powers of observation. And when I met her, her personality and her sense of humor and intelligence and her willingness to put up with me were paramount.
Marge: Well, they left us on the corner, and he had to figure out what to say. He was an English major so he did pretty well with that. By the time they came back from the restaurant and picked us up, we were getting along OK. Steve was actually what they used to call a “big man on campus.”
Steve: I was tall.
Marge: He played lacrosse. He and another friend created their own fraternity, and that was a big hit with most people on campus, because it was an unusual thing to do in those days. Most people did what they were told. Most people joined fraternities and sororities because of like-mindedness. His fraternity decided instead of fancy dress balls, they would have jazz concerts. That was also a big hit. So different.
Steve: We created a whole different tone. We allowed open pledging, you could approach us. Instead of cardigan sweaters, we got blue blazers and straw skimmers, because we had friends whose fathers were in the garment business. We classed up the whole situation. And the jazz concerts were so popular. We hired musicians from clubs in New York City for concerts. We had some great headliners out of the city. We had a lot of fun being atypical.
Marge [deadpanning]: I liked the jazz.
Best one-liner wins
Press: It sounds like you like to have fun with each other.
Marge: He said the other day, “I like the snarky.”
Steve [shrugs]: It wears well.
Under the influence of a full moon, Marge and Steve Darby prove laughter plays a large part in their 61-year marriage. (Courtesy photo))
Marge: If all else fails. [Laughs.] That’s what we do: constantly kibitzing. It’s an ongoing sideshow. The person who can come up with the best one-liner wins. We used to like to hike and walk and cross-country ski a lot, but we can’t anymore. So now, what do we do now? He owns the television clicker, so he gets to decide.
Steve: We do a lot of things together with the children. There’s so much going on with all of them. We had two boys and fraternal twin daughters. We’re fortunate they’re all close by. We see a lot of each other.
Marge: And we have 10 grandchildren. Someone’s always doing something. Dance classes, athletic events, recitals, theater, rowing. That never ends.
Steve: The calendar gets crazily crowded if you start thinking about it. It’s one of our great joys that they’re close by.
Marge: Keeping up with the grandchildren, on top of what they are interested in, is a big challenge. For example, we have three prospective engineers. It’s not easy talking to them when most of their conversations are way over your head.
Steve: Intellectually it’s very challenging, but it’s very helpful in terms of your outlook. You don’t think of yourself and your aches and pains because you are thinking about things on a different level. With all these diverse interests, it’s keeping us alive, and it’s fun.
Press: Tell us about your family values.
Marge: We are very liberal. We were liberal when it wasn’t a dirty word. It looks like it’s becoming acceptable again to be liberal.
Steve: Or at least progressive.
Marge: We are very open about everything. I guess the flip side of that is I don’t like religious fanaticism, ultraconservatism, narrow-mindedness, or being unable to accept differences in people. I think you have to keep working at that because life changes so dramatically.
Schools have come a long way
Press: How has Harvard changed in the 46 years you’ve lived here?
Marge: The school system was not the same in those years as it is now. When my son was in the high school, it was very clear that they had a large offering of courses kids could take, but they had to have more than six people to give the course. And they couldn’t always do that. There were people whose kids stayed in the school but who got additional classes by taking summer classes at the colleges and weekend classes, which is really time consuming with four kids going in four different directions.
Steve: There just weren’t the breadth of opportunities in the school system, so we sent the kids to Middlesex boarding school in Concord. We had four kids with very diverse interests, and they couldn’t be satisfied here, but they were at Middlesex.
Marge: But that’s no longer true.
Steve: Forty years ago, who would have assumed we’d have girls playing lacrosse, boys playing hockey with another community, to say nothing about the theater and arts programs. Now they get that. It’s come a long way.
Marge: Everything is totally different from when we moved here. The kids in town used to all come to the Common to play after school. The terrible older kids would sit on the stone wall next to the cemetery. That was about as bad as a kid could get. Those were the ones too old to play ball or flashlight tag. It was—when you think back—that’s about as bad as it was. Kids couldn’t get into trouble. There were many more farms, many more kids having to work at home after school. One of our boys worked for Carlson’s in the summertime. If you didn’t have a farm, the kids worked on somebody else’s farm. It was a different world. We’re older, you know [laughs].
Not done yet
Press: What are you known for around here?
Steve: Marge has a reputation in town as someone who has been actively involved in affordable housing and for being one of the co-founders of Freedom’s Way National Heritage Area. Sometimes people don’t like the term activist, but if you asked, people would acknowledge Marge has been an advocate for a number of important things for the time she’s been in Harvard. Big accomplishments and big responsibilities. Freedom’s Way is a big accomplishment, and affordable housing is a continued frustration. I’m very proud of what she does.
Marge: I’m not finished yet. I have a lot of writing to do. I was worried about how much time I’d have left, but I’ve got at least another 20 years to do something.
Steve: I certainly hope so.
Marge: He stays out of the way. He knows when to get out of the way.
Steve: Marge has been very supportive to me all through my working career. I’ve tried to be as supportive to her with Freedom’s Way. One offers advice with the mistaken impression that it might be received, but you don’t stop because it’s so much fun hearing the rejoinder. I’m very happy to support her in this.
The prettiest girl
Press: What makes a marriage last 61 years?
Marge: Sense of humor. You have to be able to laugh. You have to have a sick sense of humor.
Steve: Not only was she the prettiest girl I’d ever seen, but also probably the most intellectually challenging and interesting person I’ve ever met. I think it’s safe to say for me that she’s my best friend. I’ll let her speak for herself because that’s the way we get along, by varying our opinions.
Marge: I have too many needs for friendship. [Turns to Steve.] You can’t tell me how to dress. You’re no help in that regard at all.
Steve: I’d have to say, it’s been 61 years of dynamic tension.
Marge [laughing]: That’s very good. I like that.
