CT couple married for 73 years dies of COVID just days apart

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    WATERFORD, CT (WFSB) — A man from Waterford couldn’t bear the thought of living without his wife of 73 years.

BJ Frasher died four days after Romona Frasher passed away.

Both died from coronavirus.

Their family shared their mixed emotions with Channel 3.

BJ Frasher was just shy of 22 when he met 19-year-old Ramona in Ohio in 1947. Their daughter Vickie said it wasn’t exactly love at first sight, at least not for her mom.

“They were both avid roller skaters and my dad had fallen and he had a cast on his wrist and he decided he would try to get my mom to sign his cast and she didn’t like him,” said Vickie Meyers, the couple’s daughter. “She thought he was too flashy and flirty and so she refused to sign his cast and he kept going back and going back and finally he got her name and number I guess and they were married not too long after that.”

Three children, three grandchildren, five great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren later, the couple were happily married for 73 years. About 13 years ago they moved from Ohio to Connecticut to be near daughter Vickie. About seven years ago, they went into a nursing home in Waterford. Both were healthy for their ages.

Then came COVID-19.

They both got sick around Thanksgiving. Ramona Frasher passed away on Saturday.

“The nurses told him that my mother had passed, and his respiration was very low for several days,” Meyers said.

On Wednesday BJ Frasher passed away as well.

“My dad always said that he wanted to die 5 minutes after mom,” Meyers explained. “He wanted to take care of her until the end, but he didn’t want to live without her. And so he was pretty much able to do that.”

Meyers said the staff at Lawrence and Memorial Hospital in New London was very compassionate and able to keep them together even until the end.

“The hospital was so kind, and they kept the lights low and kept them right next to each other so in a bad situation everybody did their best to give them their last wish to be together,” she said.

And while Meyers is angry that it was COVID that ended up taking their lives, she looks to see the positive in it. Dying together meant neither left the other behind.

“I can’t be too angry because they got to go together like they wanted,” she said. “Neither of them had to be alone.”

A loss bittersweet, but as Meyers said, the lovebirds were reunited.

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