The long-lasting marriage of Margie and Andy Rooney started during World War II. They had four children and lived most of their married life in Connecticut.

Born:

Andrew Aitken Rooney: January 14, 1919 in Albany, New York.

Marguerite "Margie" Howard: April 3, 1920 in Albany, New York.

Died:

Andy Rooney: At the age of 92, a month after he ended his commentaries on 60 Minutes, Andy Rooney died on November 4, 2011 in New York, New York after he experienced complications following minor surgery.

Marguerite Rooney: On April 27, 2004, at the age of 84, after 62 years of marriage, Marguerite died of heart failure in New York City, New York.

"Rooney grieved deeply at the loss of his wife. Since her passing, he has not written about her, saying that to write her name is just too painful."
Source: "Andy Rooney Dies at Age 92." Biography.com.

How Andy and Margie Met:

Andy and Marge met when they were teenagers.

Andy: "I'd been writing to Marge Howard, a girl I'd first met in Mrs. Munson's dancing class when we were thirteen. We had gone together, off and on, all through high school and college."
Source: Andrew A. Rooney. Andy Rooney: 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit. 2010. pg. 15.

Wedding Date:

On April 21, 1942, Margie and Andy were married in what Andy described as a "bare-bones Army chapel" on Ft. Bragg in North Carolina. Their wedding officiant was Chaplain Joseph Farrell. They celebrated their wedding at dinner that night with friends of Margie's parents at The Pinehurst Inn, near Southern Pines, North Carolina.

Andy had to return right away to the barracks and was restricted to base. Once in Florida, he went every day after roll call to spend time with Margie in Saint Augustine.

Andy: "In February or March we decided, long distance and me on a pay phone, to get married. I forget why we thought it was a good idea. Most of our friends were delaying marriage until after the war."
Source: Andrew A. Rooney. Andy Rooney: 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit. 2010. pg. 16.

Andy: "After dinner I returned directly to the barracks at Fort Bragg and, on the very next day, before we'd had a chance to live any married life, the Seventeenth Field Artillery was ordered south from North Carolina to Camp Blanding, Florida, and we were all restricted to the base until the move, which took place ten days later ... "
Source: Andy Rooney. My War. pg. 37.

Children:

• Emily Rooney: Born in 1950.
• Brian Rooney: Born in 1951.
• Ellen Rooney: Born in 1947.
• Martha Rooney Fishel: Born in 1950.

Residences:

Margie and Andy lived in Rowayton, [near Norwalk], Connecticut since 1951. They had vacation homes in Rensselaerville, New York and at the Pilot Knob area of Lake George in New York.

Andy: "Our house provides me with a simple pleasure every time I come home to it. I am welcomed by familiar things when I enter, and I'm warmed by some ambience that may merely be dust, but it is our dust and I like it. There are reverberations of the past everywhere, but it is not a sad place, because all the things left undone hold great hope for its future ... When anyone asks me how much I think our house is worth, I just smile. They couldn't buy what that house means to me for all the money in both local banks. The house is not for sale."
Source: Andrew A. Rooney. Andy Rooney: 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit. 2010. pgs. 171-172.

Occupations:

Andy: Television commentator, author, producer, curmudgeon essayist, journalist, correspondent, humorist, writer for The Stars and Stripes during World War II.

Margie: Teacher.

Quotes About the Marriage of Margie and Andy Rooney:

Brian Rooney: "His gruffness hides sentimentality. ... When my mother died, he curled up on the bed like a child, crying her name. He loves life and wishes it would never end."
Source: Bob Minzesheimer. "'A few minutes' with Andy Rooney becomes 91 years." USAToday.com. 1/14/2010.

Andy: "Margie, my wife of sixty years, died in 2004 and her name does not appear as often as it originally did because it hurts too much to write it."
Source: Andy Rooney. Out of My Mind. 2007. pg. xiv.

Andy: "... the only good thing about a law making it mandatory for two people being married to get a license, is that it makes splitting up harder. There isn't a married couple alive who hasn't entertained the thought of divorce."
Source: Andy Rooney. Common Nonsense. 2003. pg. 287.