Bronx high school sweethearts celebrate 75 years of marriage

A lot of things happened in 1950.

The Korean War began, Charles Schulz debuted Peanuts, the Diner’s Club introduced the first major credit card and Morris Goldman and Roberta Kruh got married. 

Celebrating their 75th anniversary this month, Morris, 96 and Roberta, 93, were two kids growing up in the Bronx; Morris near Crotona Park East and Roberta along Bryant Avenue. They met at the now-shuttered James Monroe High School in the Soundview neighborhood of the Bronx. 

He was a staircase monitor, and she was walking to class with her cousin, in whom Morris was initially interested. But that changed when he landed eyes on Roberta. She was a dancer at the Second Avenue Theater at the time with a body to match, according to Morris. 

They quickly began going steady and Morris, three years Roberta’s senior, took her to her junior prom.

She realized that night he was “the one.”  

After the dance, a group of couples went back to a friend’s house to hang out and do what teenagers do. Roberta was wearing a strapless gown when suddenly and unbeknownst to her, her left breast popped out and made a cameo at the party.

“And you know what he did?” Roberta asked rhetorically. “He put it back and I said, ‘This is a good guy. He’s a keeper.’” 

Morris was 21 and Roberta was 18 when they wed. He always worked for his father, a restaurant entrepreneur. When Morris graduated high school, his father bought him his own diner-style restaurant in the South Bronx along Southern Boulevard, which provided Roberta with the security to quit her job. 

When she was 19 years old, her manager at the theater told her to come up to his office late one night so they could discuss how he could “put her on top.”

“I didn’t like that, and I said, ‘I don’t need this,’” she recalled to The Press.

Roberta still loves to perform and does so with the Riverdale Y.

Two years after their marriage, the Goldmans felt they were ready for a divorce and visited a lawyer to start the process. It didn’t take.

“We started talking and the lawyer opened the door and said, ‘Get the hell out of here. You two kids love each other. Go and live and have a happy life,’’ Morris said, laughing. 

They went on to have three daughters: Wendy, Debra and Robin. 

“The first word that comes to my mind is devotion,” Wendy Matthews, their eldest, said of her parents’ relationship. “They’re like one person.”

Roberta and Morris are the kind of couple to finish each other’s sentences, and they share a similar sense of humor. Morris is hard of hearing and Roberta — who he calls Bobby — often repeats sentences to him between his “Whos” and “Whats.” 

“You don’t see that kind of old-school love and connection anymore,” Dylan Matthews, married with two young children himself, said of his grandparents. “I think I got my romantic side from their life.”

As a child, Matthews recalled his grandmother as “the quintessential stylish New Yorker,” always walking around with her fur coat and pearls, frequenting Broadway shows. She loved showtunes and the golden age of music.

While Roberta indulged in the arts, Morris was all about making money. 

“As soon as we have a grandchild born and they can understand English, he asks them, ‘What’s the color?’” Wall Matthews said of his father-in-law, who he affectionately calls Mitch. “The color is green.” 

Grandson Dylan echoed this sentiment. 

“[Morris] always put it in our head to be hard workers,” he said.

Morris is still in the restaurant business, with partial ownership in Brooklyn National Deli at Port Authority. Dylan owns his own commercial editing company and attributes his work ethic to his grandfather. 

In 75 years, one of the most tumultuous moments for the couple was when Morris had bypass surgery in the 80s and when Roberta was diagnosed with lung cancer about 25 years ago. Roberta had a piece of her lung removed and never required any follow-up treatment. They consider themselves lucky. 

At their 50th anniversary party, the Goldman’s invited and honored the doctor Morris said saved his life. 

To celebrate their 75th, the couple plans on renewing their vows at a large gathering in Brooklyn, where Roberta will sing “Fools Rush In.” 

“We’ve been lucky we found the right partners and we have each other and we love each other,” Morris said. 

When asked the secret to a long marriage, Roberta replied, “My husband says, ‘yes dear.’ That’s his motto.”

Happy wife, happy life.