This couple met at a summer carnival in N.J. They just celebrated 70-plus years of marriage.

Jackie and some other Philly teens who spent their summers in Browns Mills, N.J., had just won first prize in the Mirror Lake Water Carnival’s float contest. Then her little sister, Alice, was crowned 1948′s Carnival Queen. Jackie took to the dance floor and celebrated with a joyous Charleston.

A boy across the room noticed, nudged his friend, Stacy, and said, “I dare you to ask her to dance.”

Stacy, who lived in Pemberton Borough, had arrived at the clubhouse on the boat of a high school girlfriend — one of several girls whose company he enjoyed back then. She was still tying up the boat when he sauntered toward Jackie.

“I thought he was going to ask my girlfriend to dance, but he came straight to me,” Jackie remembers. “He had this curly hair, and wore his shirt with a pack of cigarettes rolled up in his sleeve, and he reminded me of James Dean,” she said. “He was so cool and I thought, ‘Oh God, he’s my boy!’ ”

Stacy went to every dance he could but had never seen anyone do the Charleston, which had been popular in the 1920s. He decided he had to learn. “Jackie was quite the dancer, and quite the singer, and she had such a great attitude,” he said. “It just felt like it was meant to be, and I never saw any other girls again.”

When summer ended, Jackie, who had recently graduated from Olney High, returned home to Philadelphia and became a secretary at a food distribution company. She sent weekly letters to Stacy, who would call when he received them. At least every other week, Stacy drove to Olney to see her. “I used to have to cross the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge, and it cost me a nickel, which was terrible when I was only making 35 cents an hour as a mechanic,” he remembered. Jackie’s mother let him sleep on the sofa so they could see each other the next day, too — no toll required.

In September 1949, on the way back from a friend’s wedding, Stacy pulled over on a Rancocas Creek bridge and asked Jackie to marry him.

They wed on April 15, 1950, in a little wooden chapel that once stood in Hainesport. Neither of their families had money to help pay for a reception for 75, but Jackie’s former employer provided all the food, family members served it, and Jackie’s Uncle George’s oompah band played music so everyone could dance.

Early in their marriage, Stacy became a homebuilder. He built the couple’s first home in Pemberton, starting very small and basic and refining and adding on as money allowed and additional children required. Stacy’s company, Stockton and Dull, grew for 20 years. Then he bought out his partner to form Stockton Construction.

When the couple moved to New Jersey, Jackie took a job at a local bank. She left after the couple’s first child, Stacy A., was born in 1951. About every two years, another child arrived: Jaclyn, Thomas, and Alice.

Stacy’s parents had split up when he was very young. He did not meet his father until just before he and Jackie married, and never had a relationship with him. Stacy was close to his mother, but was primarily raised by his grandparents, whom he adored. Yet, not having parents at things like school parent day left scars. He and Jackie were determined that their children — and now seven grandchildren, three great-grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren on the way — never doubted their importance and how much they are loved.

From the early days, Stacy and Jackie took their children on camping trips and down the Shore. Sometime in the 1960s, Jackie’s sister Alice asked her and Stacy if they wanted to purchase a Ship Bottom cottage with her and her husband, Kenny. “We spent many summers there while raising our children,” Jackie said. All the cousins remain close, just as their parents had hoped.

When the youngest of the Stockton kids was in high school, Jackie decided it was time to pursue her dream to teach. She enrolled first in community college and then transferred to Glassboro, which is now Rowan University. Jackie’s two daughters also graduated from Glassboro — in fact, she and Alice shared the stage in the school’s production of “Oh! What a Lovely War.”

Jackie, who is now 92, taught English for 20 years at Burlington County VoTech in Medford Lakes.

Decades ago, Jackie’s sister and brother-in-law sold their half of the Ship Bottom cottage to Jackie and Stacy. Stacy, who is now 93, took on one last big project before retiring: He tore down the old summer cottage and built the year-round home where the couple has lived full time since 1990.

Asked the secret to their long marriage, Jackie said, “Lots of hugs, lots of kisses, and lots of yelling at each other.” Stacy said, more seriously, “You have to cooperate, and you have to do many things — sometimes things you don’t want to do.”

The couple was set to celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary in spring of 2020. The month before that party, family and friends had gathered to celebrate Jackie’s 90th birthday. It was early in the COVID-19 pandemic and the world had not yet shut down. Jackie, Stacy, and several other people — including Jackie’s best friend — were later diagnosed with COVID. After long illnesses, Stacy and Jackie recovered. But others, including Jackie’s friend, did not.

This past June, family and friends gathered to celebrate Stacy and Jackie’s 70th anniversary, plus two years. It was lovely but bittersweet.

Jackie’s thoughts kept turning to her late best friend. She thought also of her little sister, gone for about five years, and the friend who had so long ago dared Stacy to ask Jackie to dance. He died last year. “When you live as long as we have, you lose most of your friends,” Jackie said. “Too many people have gone.”

But their kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids — many of whom live nearby — were with them to celebrate the anniversary. “They played the old songs from the ‘40s and ‘50s, and we got a chance to dance together right at the beginning,” said Stacy. The couple danced to their favorite song of all, “My Happiness.”

Stacy and Jackie’s son, Tom, has a new home on the Gulf of Mexico. “We hope next winter we can go to Florida for awhile and see Tom,” said Stacy. “It’s too quiet here in the wintertime.”

“We have to take it one day at a time,” said Jackie. “But what the heck, we still have dreams.”