Floyd and Donna Holroyd have been removed from the mid-Mon Valley for the better part of their 60 years of marriage, but their memories of life here are indelible.

Now living in Sun City Center, Fla., the Holroyds are Charleroi natives -- he is the son of Frank Giles Holroyd and Helen Irene Maund Holroyd and she is the daughter of the late William Couch and Elizabeth Couch.

"My parents divorced in 1937 and I stayed with my mother," Floyd Holroyd said. "We lived at the home of my grandparents (James and Rosella Maund) at 807 McKean Ave. in Charleroi. Donna's biological father died when she was only 5. Her mother remarried and her husband's name was John Henry Benson. They lived at 600 Fallowfield Ave. when I met Donna."

The Holroyds celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary on July 6 with their children and their families in Michigan.

"In my mind, the reason for our long marriage is love, honor, trust, respect, responsibility, understanding and the desire to satisfy each other," Holroyd said. "We both came from broken marriages, one by divorce, the other by death, that caused us pain when we were young. I believe we both desired not to have this happen in our family. In addition to this, we enjoy and support each other in whatever we do."

A 1944 graduate of Charleroi Vocational High School, Holroyd said his sports activities as a pre-teen and teen were limited to sandlot baseball and touch football made up of teams of "guys who were available in the neighborhood at any given moment."

"We never had what you would call a full team," he said. "We were always short of players but it was fun. I was never involved in sports or any other planned or organized activities in high school. I went out for track in junior high but didn't make the team."

Like many other young people in that post-Depression ear, Holroyd sought work to help his family.

"When I was 16, I had a part-time job at a gas station at Eighth Street and McKean Avenue and during the summer vacation between my junior and senior years in high I worked at Corning Glass for three months," Holroyd said.

"I got used to having some spending money, so when the school year started, I took a job at Lee-Norse Co. in Lock Four machining mine machinery parts from 4 p.m. to midnight five days a week. The war was on and jobs normally not available to teens were easy to get."

Holroyd said he and his wife, a 1945 Charleroi High graduate, enjoyed growing up when they did.

"We both say the years of the Depression and World War II were the best of times in Charleroi for us," he said. "We remember the good and some tough times during those years. It seemed like we knew everybody in Charleroi and everybody knew us. It provided a sense of belonging."

In looking back on those years, the Holroyds recall the 16 cents they received on Saturday for an ice cream cone from Isaly's (5 cents) and a movie at The Menlo theater, which they and others called "the ranch house" (11 cents). They later learned to roller skate, Floyd at the Charleroi rink and then at the one in Belle Vernon, and Donna at a skating rink in Fairhope.

Neither earned a college degree after graduating from Charleroi High School. However, Holroyd, who enlisted in the U.S. Navy during his senior year at CHS, did attend college in Michigan to earn credits from Lawrence Tech and Oakland County Community College related to his work at General Motors.

"This was tough duty working 58-plus hours a week, raising a family and going to school all at the same time," Holroyd said. "It became too much. I suppose my college education amounts to about a total of one year."

The Holroyds, who moved to Detroit in 1952, are the parents of two children. Their daughter, Sheryl Stacey, and her husband, Terry, live in the Detroit suburb of Canton, Mich., and are the parents of two sons, Dan and Matt, who also live in Canton. Dan and Matt each have two children, giving Floyd and Donna four great-grandchildren: Brendan, Abby, Conner and Logan. The Holroyds' son, Richard, and his wife, Meridith, live on Oak Island, N.C.

The Holroyds now live in a retirement community that was started by Del Webb, of California and Arizona fame, some 40 years ago.

"Like all of his developments, Sun City Center is set up to keep seniors busy," Holroyd said. "Donna and I each have our own passion that we pursue here. She keeps busy with Bunka art, a Japanese art form which is like painting by numbers but with thread. I belong to the Sun City Center Model Railroad Club. We used to travel a lot, first by pulling a trailer and later in a motor home. Because of our age and the fact there is nowhere else we want to go, we gave it up. What little travel we do now is in a car."

In their younger days the Holroyds visited immediate family in Charleroi "on a pretty regular basis."

"All of our family members are gone now, so we haven't been to Charleroi for quite some time," Holroyd said. "We do have some cousins in the Charleroi area and Western Pennsylvania, and we keep in touch by phone and at Christmas time with cards."

Holroyd said he and his wife "always liked the small-town feel" of Charleroi and that's why they enjoy Sun City Center.

"It also has a small-town feel like Charleroi," he said. "We know a lot of people here and all the stores, restaurants and, most important, doctors are so handy. We have a lot to keep us busy so we don't think about our age. It is not unusual for people to reach 90 here, and we just read about a group of 10 or so who turned 100. One of our local banks had a party for them."

Holroyd reaffirmed the importance of being raised in Charleroi.

"It was a good thing for Donna and me," he said. "We were taught values like honesty, respect and family. Even though I was not a good student in school, my lifetime achievements were on the plus side. I attribute this, in part, to being raised in a small town like Charleroi.

"There is a lot to be said for the benefits of growing up in a small town. So many kids miss what we had when we were young -- the freedom to be a kid, play and develop your talents no matter what they are."