Couple with record 63-year age gap prove love conquers all and age is just a number

Back when the Janeways tied the knot, some people probably doubted their love was real. But they were a match made in heaven who proved aged is just a number.

Gertrude Grubb Janeway (USA), born 3 July 1909, was a whole 63 years younger than her lover John Wesley Janeway (also USA), born 1 December 1845, giving them the record for greatest age difference between a married couple.

In a world obsessed with age, many people will look to celebrity couples like Rolling Stones legend Mick Jagger and his fiancée Melanie Hamrick, who have an age gap of 44 years, or actress Sarah Paulson, who is 32 years younger than her partner Holland Taylor, but that’s nothing compared to the Janeways. 

At the time of their marriage on 9 June 1927, Gertrude was 18 years of age, and John was 81. 

So, how did these record-breaking lovers meet? It is a love story that is old, but gold.

Back in May 1864, John’s hometown of Blount County, Tennessee, USA, was filled with plantations and farms. The state was being ravaged by the American Civil War, and an 18-year-old John was on his family’s horse, beginning his journey to Buffalo Creek. 

A fresh-faced 18-year-old John was enjoying his casual ride when he was approached by some soldiers. He probably hadn’t expected to be recruited to serve for the 14^th Illinois Cavalry - but fate had other plans. The soldiers shared stories with him about fighting off rebels, and it was on that day that he waved goodbye to his boyhood farming life and embraced the start of army duties. 

When asked by the soldiers and campmates what his name was, the boy said “John January”, as he didn’t want his parents to find out. He was desperate for adventure and wanted to experience a new challenge away from his small-town Tennessee roots. John served throughout the Civil War until it ended in 1965, and not much is known about his life post-war, apart from his love story with Gertrude.

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Gertrude Grubb had a difficult upbringing. She was born in 1909 with a deformed right hand and only learned to walk when she was seven. She also lost her father when she was just 13.

Her mother, Halley Grubb, washed clothes for a living and was paid 50 cents for every day she worked. Halley was very good friends with the Janeway family, so Gertrude and John had been in each other’s company often, at family and community gatherings, and found they had a connection. 

In 1998, Gertrude was interviewed by the Thousand Oaks Star, a local newspaper that ran from 1964 to 2001. When talking about her and John’s history, she said: "Mama said we'd have to court for three years until I was of age. We courted for two years. We'd sit out back of the house in cane chairs and talk for hours.”  

It was on 9 June 1927 that John and Gertrude got married at 9 a.m., in the middle of a dirt track surrounded by friends and family.

A year after the wedding, John took Gertrude on a trip to a studio to get professional pictures taken. It was her first time having her picture taken, and she didn’t know what to do, so she just copied the stance of her husband. 

Image: Wikimedia Commons

In 1932, the couple decided it was time to buy their first home and they settled for a log cabin in Blaine, Tennessee. This photo shows the cabin, a place that Gertrude remembered passing as a child, and the house that she moved into at the age of 23 and stayed in until her death. 

After a happy but short time sharing the same last name, John passed away on 11 February 1937 at the age of 91 in his bed in the cabin, making Gertrude, only 27 at the time, a widow. After he passed, Gertrude described the heartbreak she felt, telling the BBC: “After he died, why it just seemed like a part of me went down under the ground with him." 

She remarried three years later, tying the knot with a man named Alfred Vineyard, but after just three years, she divorced him and went back to using the name Janeway. 

On 17 January 2003, aged 93, Gertrude Grubb Janeway passed away in Blaine, Tennessee. She had been the last living widow of a Union Soldier who participated in the American Civil War. She received a $70 monthly Civil War pension cheque, always addressed to “John January”, until she died.

One of the last pictures of Gertrude shows her holding a photo of herself and her husband, who she said she would always “love and adore”.