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Sunday, December 29, 2002

First published Sept. 22, 2002
By Steve Mellon

This image showing Bert Spontak caring for his wife, Shirlie, who suffers from dementia and is a patient at Passavant Retirement and Health Center in Zelienople, appeared with a story about nursing homes struggling to keep up with the demands of our elderly population. Mellon: There is a lifetime of commitment in this picture -- it serves, I hope, as an antidote to the many high-profile but short-term celebrity marriages we hear about these days. In this case, the words 'for better or worse, in sickness and in health' mean something. A husband and wife spent decades building a strong, loving relationship. My contribution to the image was necessarily minimal. All I did was push the button on a camera." The story.