Elderly couple married for 62 years die together while holding hands

'Their love was a testimony to many, and was surely a match made in Heaven'

The couple married just three weeks after their first date in the 1950s (Screenshot/ KPRC 2 Houston)

An elderly couple married for more than 60 years died within two hours of each other, while holding hands.

Delma and Tom Ledbetter, from Lake Jackson, Texas, both fell ill in April.

The couple’s family sent Mr Ledbetter to the same nursing home as his wife, where the pair held hands until they passed away together on 21 April.

Mr Ledbetter died first, and within an hour and a half, his wife followed.

“Their love was a testimony to many, and was surely a match made in Heaven. Although the family is filled with sadness, they are left with many loving memories until the time comes that they are all together again,” an obituary for the couple reads.

One of the couple’s daughters, Donetta Nichols, said they died exactly how they would have wanted.

“It was exactly how they wanted to go. It couldn't have been any better,” she told local TV station KPRC 2.

“They had pushed their little beds together and Mama was laying right there, facing him. She was asleep and Daddy goes and he reached over there and he grabbed ahold of her hand and he just laid there with her, and it was so sweet.”

According to Ms Nichols, the pair met in the 1950s through mutual friends when they were both living in Florida. A chance encounter led to their first date, and just three weeks later, the couple married.

The couple had two daughters, seven grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. They were laid to rest, side by side, at Restwood Memorial Park.