Skokie couple, married 69 years, die minutes apart, holding hands

Isaac Vatkin cared tenderly for Teresa, his wife of 69 years. When she began having memory problems more than a decade ago, he fed her and made sure she ate right. He washed her clothes and bathed her. He brought her to Mayo Clinic and enrolled her in research trials.

Only when he couldn’t lift her any longer did he agree to place her in a memory-care facility.

In his 80s, Mr. Vatkin mastered a computer so he could go online to search for breakthroughs in Alzheimer’s disease research. As recently as a year ago, he dreamed of getting an apartment where they could be together.

So when they died within 40 minutes of each other Saturday, after holding hands in their shared hospital room, it seemed fitting that Mr. Vatkin, who’d been such a loving caregiver, didn’t stop breathing until after his wife.

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