It was not love at first sight when Delma Earsman met Francis, ‘Frank’, Murray 86 years ago.
“His best mate lived next door and he was having a birthday party,” Delma remembers, telling New Idea she went along and met Frank there.
“I didn’t like him,” the 100-year-old says.
“He was too forward. My mum asked if I met anyone at the party, and I said one boy, but that I wasn’t keen on him.”
The feeling was definitely not mutual, and Frank admits he liked Delma as soon as he saw her. Breaking his leg soon after their first meeting, he kept limping along to events on crutches, hoping to catch her eye.
“He kept coming to dances, and one time he offered to walk me home, which must have been a big effort on his part on crutches,” she says. “He grew on me, and then he declared I was his girlfriend to the other boys. I denied it, but he kept coming to the dances.”
He must have eventually worn her down because it wasn’t long before Delma admitted they were an item, inviting Frank to baked Sunday dinners with her family and, when he was crutch-free, dancing the night away with him.
“After that, I was called up for the war,” Frank, who is now 102, tells New Idea. “We wrote all the time. I was in New Guinea and got leave in 1945, and that’s when we got married.”
There was no proposal as such. I think it was a statement, ‘we’ll be together forever,’ and now we have been!”
The wedding, just before the end of World War II, was scrabbled together with whatever they could get with their coupons.
“My sister was a bridesmaid and she made this lovely white tulle dress out of mosquito nets,” Delma says. “I had a white satin gown and a veil. There were about 50 or 60 guests. Afterwards, Frank had to go back to the islands for six months.”
Discharged at the end of the war, the married couple were finally free to start their lives together and had two daughters, Sandra, now 78, and Joy, 72.
“It was a wonderful time. I only wanted girls, so I was hysterical when I had the second one,” Delma says. “We had some lovely times, a very good life.”
![Delma and Frank with their family, including daughters Joy [ 3rd from left] and Sandra [far right], on Delma's 100th birthday](https://api.photon.aremedia.net.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/17/2025/09/1-read-metadata-1-68ba415441884.jpg?resize=2048%2C1424)
And after eighty years of marriage, Delma and Frank are still celebrating that good life. The sweethearts have even been declared our official “oldest living married couple” by The Australian Book of Records. It was a milestone they shared with family and friends at the aged care home they now live at in Newcastle.
When asked what the secret is to a happy marriage, Frank says it’s to “do what you’re told,” something Delma raises her eyebrows at.
“You need a lot of tolerance,” she says. “And always talk it out. We’ve never said, this is it, we’re getting divorced.”
But Delma says her husband is as devoted to her as the day they met.
“He’s very caring. He looks after me better than anyone,” she says.
Frank adds with a laugh: “She’s the only girl I’ve ever had, and I’ve kept her all these years. I can’t see her getting another boyfriend now”.
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