Patient Stories

Love Keeps Them Together

When Bill Mercaldi was captain of his junior high football team in Beverly more than 80 years ago, Jane Thompson caught his eye.

“I knew her brother was a football fan, so I struck up a conversation and got him to introduce me to Jane,” recalled Bill.

The match was meant to be, and this August, Bill, 95, and Jane, 96, plan to celebrate 75 years of marriage at their assisted living apartment in Concord. Love has kept them together and helped them through many challenges, including a world war, pandemic, and illness that led to Bill’s referral to hospice.

After graduating from Beverly High School in 1944, Bill requested to be drafted into the U.S. Navy during World War II. He served for two years as a radio technician, including time in Japanese waters on the USS Cascade, a destroyer tender.

When Bill was discharged from the Navy in 1946, Jane was waiting for him. Bill was accepted into Harvard to study electrical engineering and after completing his first year, he and Jane were married. By the time he graduated, he and Jane had one daughter and were expecting a son. Bill worked for IBM for nearly five years, and by the time he and Jane had welcomed two more daughters into the world, they had already moved back to Beverly. Bill took a research position at the United Shoe Machinery Corporation building (now known as The Cummings Center).

Over the years, Bill and Jane’s four children gave them 10 grandchildren, and they now have 17 great-grandchildren.

In sickness and in health . . .

Over the years, Bill developed heart disease and saw various doctors frequently. A month after the COVID-19 pandemic hit, he and Jane moved to Concord Park Senior Living in Concord where they had been on a waiting list for an apartment.

After being hospitalized for congestive heart failure in December 2020, Bill was referred to Care Dimensions for hospice.

“I didn’t want to go to the hospital anymore,” said Bill. Having visits from a Care Dimensions nurse, social worker, and chaplain, plus access to the 24-hour nursing support line reassured him and Jane that choosing hospice was the right way to go.

Their children agree with that decision.

“My dad did not like having to go to the hospital for all the medical testing and prodding that each emergency trip there seemed to elicit,” said daughter Martha Kaiser. “He is much more comfortable and at peace knowing that when Care Dimensions is called, he will get the palliative care necessary to keep him comfortable and that nature can take its course without overmuch intervention.”

Knowing that their father has 24/7 phone access to a hospice nurse, plus regular visits from his care team, also puts Bill and Jane’s children at ease. All four of them live at least a day’s journey from Concord.

When the children (and their children and grandchildren) cannot visit Bill and Jane, they stay in touch via daily phone conversations and email exchanges. “We reminisce and record my dad’s memories over his long and meaningful life for future generations of our family to treasure,” said Martha.

With a marriage that has lasted nearly 75 years, there’s a lot to recall and record. What’s the secret to such a long marriage?

“Forgive everything, and don’t judge,” said Jane.

The couple is happy continuing to make more memories each day they’re together.