Last weekend, Joe and Mary Carroll Jordan celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary with a great gathering of family members and friends. They were married on Aug.10, 1967, at Good Counsel Catholic Church in Little Rock, Ark. Mary Carroll’s uncle, the Rev. Thomas Keller, officiated at the wedding.
In December 1967, they moved to Chesterfield, where Joe was to begin teaching mathematics in January 1968 at the new John Tyler Community College. He taught there until May 2014, when he retired after 45 1/2 years of teaching. He had the privilege of teaching math for 36 years with his brother Ed, also a professor.
Mary Carroll received her nursing degree in 1977 from John Tyler. She worked as a Registered Nurse in the area of psychiatry for over 25 years in several hospitals in the Richmond area.
They have two sons, Jay (Tia) and James (Andrea), and five grandchildren: Micah, Lauren, Andrei, Dmitri, and Palina. Both families live in the Baltimore area.
Asked what gave them such a long marriage, Joe replied, among many things, “You don’t always got to be right.” Mary Carroll did not divulge her secret, but knowing them, it is obvious that love for each other is the main ingredient of their long happy life together!
