When Helen Auer, 94, died last week, she was sitting in a chair, and her husband Joe came into the room and knew what had happened.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that Joe leaned over, gave her a kiss goodbye and whispered in her ear: "Helen, call me home."

Just 28 hours later, Helen did just that, when Joe Auer died at the age of 100.

His children said their father could manage one night without her, but not two.

On Wednesday, a funeral Mass was celebrated for Joe and Helen in front of the same altar, at St Lawrence's Church in Cincinnati, where they were married in 1941.

The couple met at church and had the first of their 10 children before Joe went off to fight in World War II, when Helen was pregnant with their second child.

Helen was later able to mail him a photo of herself and their first two children, which Joe kept in his wallet for the rest of his life.

He had the photo with him when he landed on Utah Beach in Normandy on D-Day in 1944.

"Dad thought of his children as a gift from God, that was a responsibility for him," his daughter Mary Jo Reiners said.

"He taught us to be servants to God and to be caretakers of his Earth. He was recycling on his last day."

Joe and Helen's marriage survived because they loved each other and because they worked at their marriage and they shared a devout faith, the article stated.

Money was a little tight and 10 children can add stress to any relationship, but they always managed.

Joe used to take two buses each way to his job as an engraver. He bought his first car when he retired.

"They were simple, humble people. They wanted nothing and got everything in return," their son Jerry said.

"If somebody were thinking of getting married, they could do a lot worse than to look at my parents."

Sources

• Cincinnati Enquirer
• Image: The Telegraph

"For the archdiocese, this case has always been about an employee violating a legally enforceable contract that she signed," said communications director Dan Andriacco.

"Our schools are Catholic schools and the work that our school employees do is an extension of that ministry."

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Christa Dias is suing the archdiocese over her dismissal, saying she was fired simply because she was pregnant and unmarried.

Dias said she and her same-sex partner had discussed the possibility that being pregnant and unmarried could cause a problem with her employers. But they thought she could explain that the pregnancy was through artificial insemination and not premarital sex.

The archdiocese's human resources director, William Hancock, told the court he recommended Dias be fired after he was told she was pregnant out of wedlock and later that the pregnancy resulted from artificial insemination.

He said Dias was fired because she violated the contracts she signed "saying she would uphold the teachings of the Catholic Church", Hancock said. "She made a choice against the five contracts she signed."

He said his recommendation was "based on the conduct, not the pregnancy", and testified he would recommend firing a man who had got an unmarried woman pregnant or who had participated in artificial insemination.

The archdiocese also said Dias was a ministerial employee and the US Supreme Court had said religious groups can dismiss those employees without government interference.

But Dias says she taught computer technology at two schools and had no ministerial duties.

Dias said she is a Christian but not Catholic and was told that didn't matter when she was hired. She said she thought the contract clause requiring compliance with Church philosophies meant she should try "to be a Christian woman and follow the Bible".

At an earlier hearing, the judge noted that Dias "admitted she was in a long-term homosexual relationship during her employment, and that she kept such fact secret from defendants as she knew defendants would view her relationship as a violation of the morals clause".

Sources:

Washington Post

Courthouse News Service

Image: USA Today