SILENT FIFTY YEARS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 201, 26 August 1939, Page 11

SILENT FIFTY YEARS.

HAPPILY MARRIED.

MESSAGES THROUGH CHILDREN. HUNGARIAN EXPLAINS STRANGE VOW. (Special.—By Air Mail.) LONDON", August 5. Mr. and Mr*. Hello, of Budapest. Hungary, this week celebrated their 51?t wedding anniversary and completed ~>o years' of ''silence.'" For half a century they have not spoken to each other, yet it is said that there's no happier married couple in all Europe than this landowner and his wife.

When they have something to say to each other they communicate through one of their three children. Their vow of silence dates from their first wedding anniversary in July, 1889.

Mr. Helle explained this week that the cause of the strange vow was that as their first wedding anniversary approached, he invited his friends to celebrate together with his wife and himself. Mrs. Helle insisted on s|K?nding the day alone with her husband. The guests arrived and Mrs. Helle did not appear. Xcxt dar there was <i terrible quarrel between the couple, am' .ce then they have 110 c spoken one word to eaeli other.

Both husband and wife assert that they have been quite happy during the long period of silence, and the neighbours have never heard a quarrel from their home. "We lived together with silent tongue, but a loving heart," they told their friends who came again to celebrate their fiftieth anniversary of silence. "It would be good for ear-li marriage," said Mr. Helle, "to l>c silent at least for several weeks in every year. It would be a 'spiritual spring-cleaning,' and it would make marriages happier and more constant."