It was a wedding nearly 40 years in the making last month at City Hall.
Anthony “Tony” Kaney and Larry Dobbins tied the knot Nov. 23.
The couple met in 1976 at a Center City bar.
“He was very sweet, and we seemed very compatible,” Kaney, 75, said of their first meeting. “He was also very smart.”
“It was so natural,” added Dobbins, 84. “He was so easy to get along with.”
Both are transplants to the Philly area — Dobbins from Alabama and Kaney from Illinois — who moved here for work. Dobbins retired from his career as an electrical engineer at General Electric in the early 1990s and Kaney from his position as a biology professor at Bryn Mawr College in 2007.
The couple dated for about a year before moving in together. Dobbins had two children from a previous marriage, and they quickly accepted Kaney into their family, Dobbins said.
Over the years, their shared interests in such hobbies as classical music and opera blossomed.
“We enjoy doing the same things together,” Kaney said, adding that Dobbins’ easygoing nature made navigating rough spots in life a bit easier. “He’s tolerant and open-minded. His nature is just that he doesn’t get mad about the simple things. He’s very easy to get along with.”
The same holds true for Kaney, Dobbins noted.
“We don’t worry about petty arguments,” he said. “I’m very lucky to have found him.”
As they are getting on in age, the couple began talking more seriously about marriage, to ensure one another’s rights would be protected as they age and after one passes.
“We’d talked about [marriage] theoretically but it hadn’t ever been possible so we didn’t seriously consider it,” Kaney said. “And then once it did become possible, we thought, We’ve been together 40 years, what would it prove by getting married? But more recently, we have some relatives, straight couples, who’ve been together for a long time and never married and started thinking about it because financial advisors and health professionals advised them it could make their lives easier as they get older.”
The King of Prussia couple ultimately traveled to Philly to be wed by out Court of Common Pleas Judge Ann Butchart.
“Judge Butchart really made the occasion a memorable one,” Kaney said. “She arranged for us to be married in this beautiful courtroom in City Hall, and it was really lovely. Larry’s two children and the grandchildren were there. It was a lovely family gathering, just a terrific occasion.”
Kaney noted the couple is still adjusting to their new status as a married couple.
“We’ve been calling each other ‘husband.’ I’m sure we won’t keep that up for too much longer,” he laughed. “I don’t know whether we’ll feel any different but I think it was important to state these things formally in a setting with legalistic overtones, in the presence of family members.” Their new wedding rings, Dobbins added, are reinforcing the vows they took.
“It’s a reminder every time I look at it that this is something new. But the relationship itself is the same; it’s as totally natural as it always has been.”