When Kelvyn Cullimore and Kay Haness met at Classen High School in Oklahoma City (Class of 1953), he knew right away that he liked her a lot.
That mutual feeling just kept growing and both decided to attend Brigham Young University, marrying in 1955 at age 20 while they were still in school.
They worked their way through and his parents helped them a bit financially, as well. They joke now that he got a degree in marketing and business, while she earned her “PHT” degree. She “put him through.”
But even in those heady days of young love, early adulthood and new adventures, neither of them could have predicted they’d still be crazy about each other 70 years later, still energetic and engaged with the world at 90 years old each.
Nor could they have foreseen their five children, 25 grandchildren, 84 great-grandchildren and two great-greats.
They couldn’t have known that well into their 70s they would serve their church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, by overseeing projects in Burma (now Myanmar), Haiti and Lesotho, among 30 emerging countries where they helped set up projects, got them approved and then later returned to be sure they were running well.
The pair bounced back and forth between their home in the U.S. and the world’s continents, aging and thriving in unlikely places for roughly a decade.
Recently, sitting at the dining room table in their immaculate, cheerful Cottonwood Heights home, they thumbed through a book two years in the making that captured those years.
There are photos of projects and people they came to love and candid moments from what can only be described as unexpected adventures — and not for the faint at heart. At one point, Haiti was considered too dangerous for Kay but their skills were so vital and the needs so great that they went anyway.
In a particularly striking photo Kay Cullimore is crossing a snake-filled river in Sierra Leone, walking in flip-flops on a downed tree while holding the arm of an area resident for balance.
“Not many women would have done what Kay did,” Kelvyn points out admiringly as he motions toward that photo. “Especially at age 75.”
The efforts on their church’s behalf were “very very work intensive,” he says. “It was primarily taking care of people that were needy.” By needy he means they sometimes lacked the most basic of amenities, options and resources.
The needs and the countries were varied. The Cullimores helped get a wheelchair program off the ground in many locales and a self-reliance program in others, for instance. They often juggled oversight of far-flung projects at the same time.
“We went places we’d never even heard of before,” Kay Cullimore says.
Kelvyn describes their roles in vivid language: ‘’We were policemen, we were negotiators, we were motivators. And we developed some wonderful relationships and because this lasted over nine years, we had a better continuity with the partners than the couples who went in to actually run a program, because that kind of church mission is typically 18 months long.'
When they started dating, their parents on both sides were a bit skeptical. The Cullimores were deeply committed members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; James Cullimore, Kelvyn’s dad, later became a general authority in the church.
The Haness family was Jewish, but the impact was more ethnic than spiritual. They weren’t particularly religious, Kay recently said of her family. Still, neither set of parents felt confident the combination would work.
It has, perhaps in part because Kay filled the God-shaped hole she felt by converting to her husband’s faith. She’s never looked back and in fact has given many hours to serving the church, including on Temple Square. Theirs has been a life of service mixed with faith, whether they were launching humanitarian projects or team teaching at the county jail.
Kay’s dad was born in 1898, the oldest of eight children growing up in Brooklyn. When his mom died, his dad married a woman who also had eight children. Kay said her dad ran away at age 16 and served in the Army for 33 years. She describes him as tough as nails.
Still, Kelvyn says he and his father-in-law became great friends “because I was kind of the son he never had and he had a perspective on life that just enriched my whole perspective.”
If you want to know what those closest to them think of Kay and Kelvyn Cullimore — say all 116 of their progeny and another 27 in-laws they love — you need only look at the separate word clouds the family had printed and framed for the two on the occasion of an open house to fete their 70th anniversary. Their oldest grandchild called Kay Gummy and Kelvyn Gumpy. The names have stuck.
So their sideboard features the word clouds, one for Gumpy and one for Gummy. Amid the dozens of descriptors printed in blues and greens, a few stand out. And they help explain why this couple has lived so long and loved so well.
Gumpy is “funny” in big letters and “wise” in bold letters. He’s “dedicated” and “faithful” and “just plain nice.” The words harken to tidbits like Branson, Missouri, where they lived for a few years between their stints in Utah, where they moved in 1975. Gumpy “makes me feel important.” One longs to ask about the “practical jokes” and “hand-cranked ice cream.”
Gummy, on the other hand, is hugely “loving” and “kind.” She’s “beautiful” in bold letters and caring and sweet. She’s also apparently “short,” though petite seems a better word to describe the woman who is perfectly coiffed at age 90 and likes to dress to the nines. She’s vain enough to wear wigs, she says, but is very comfortable in the poorest of the world’s poor communities.
We also paid attention to what wasn’t said, but could clearly be seen, like the way they laugh easily, listen attentively and sometimes finish each other’s sentences, peppering in details. It’s not annoying; they each just know their long-shared story well.
“I wish I knew some great things to say to bless everybody’s life,” Kelvyn Cullimore said. “So much of it is practical. I think a common belief in God has helped us a lot.”
Another secret is accepting people as they are and both teaching and learning from them, he said.
