THEIR PASSION PERSISTS : MARRIAGE STANDS TEST OF TIME.

Byline: Teresa Jimenez Daily News Staff Writer

Gladys and Emil Belanger met on a blind date during the Great Depression, but Emil said he'd been watching her for a while.

Gladys, 17 at the time, said the date went all right - they saw a movie and ate hot dogs around their Chicago neighborhood. It was Emil, she said, who persisted, asking her on dates and trying to get in good with her father.

In the end, his persistence paid off. Two years after that first date, they were married, and they've stayed that way for 63 years.

``Too long,'' joked Gladys, who just turned 82 last month. Emil turned 83 a week ago.

They tease and patiently listen to each other tell stories they've probably heard hundreds of times over the decades. Tonight, on Valentine's Day, they'll celebrate over dinner with some friends.

After all, that's how it all started. Gladys' sister and her boyfriend had set them up and accompanied them on the date.

Emil knew what he was doing from the start, Gladys said. He managed to buy her a watch with diamonds on his $21-a-week salary from the Curtis Candy Co. and would walk through the snow to help her father shovel the drive, she said.

``He would do whatever he could to get close to my dad,'' Gladys said.

``I told her dad, I want to marry your daughter,'' Emil said. ``He said, `Well, do you think you'll be able to support her?' I said, I think so. And here we are. We made it.''

Gladys said she knew the proposal was coming and mentioned that Emil didn't get on his knee when he asked. That's because there was snow on the ground, Emil explained.

Back then, the law said that if the people getting married were under the age of 21, they had to have parental permission, Emil said. Since Gladys was 19 and Emil was 20, Emil's stepmother had to go before a judge to give consent, he said.

They'd been married six years when they had a son, Ronald. In the early 1980s, Ronald took a job in the Conejo Valley. By then, Gladys and Emil had retired to Sarasota, Fla., and they began making trips across the country on a regular basis to visit their son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter.

Nine years ago, they decided to pack up and move closer to their family. Since then, they've made friends in the Ventu Estates Mobile Home Park, and they see their son and his family just about every weekend.

``Our son is only 10 minutes away now,'' Emil said.

``Fifteen,'' Gladys corrected.

Neither was quite sure how they've stayed married all these years, almost as if it was unquestionable that they ever would have separated. But they can tell you who wins the fights - sort of.

``It isn't always easy having a man around 24 hours,'' Gladys said of the post-retirement situation. ``Before, anything I said, that went. Now it's different.''

Gladys said she gets him to bend often enough with a little silent treatment.

``He says, `We don't need it, we don't need it.' But I pout a little and I get it,'' she said. ``He says, `Well, are you going to talk to me now?' I tell him, well, we'll see.''

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1--Color) Emil and Gladys Belanger - 83 and 82, respectively - have kept their love and their marriage alive for 63 years.

(2--Color) Both under 21, the Belangers needed permission to marry in the 1930s.

David R. Crane/Daily News