Longtime Lansing couple Manuel and Mary Delgado celebrate 70th wedding anniversary

LANSING — When 16-year-old Mary told her family she planned to get married, her brother offered to buy her a car if she didn't go through with the wedding.

Six children, 17 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren later, Mary and Manuel Delgado are celebrating their 70th wedding anniversary.

The couple today

Mary and Manuel have been deeply involved in the Lansing community for decades, particularly the Hispanic and Catholic communities.

"Everybody knows them, everybody knows of them," said Maria Oviedo Schopp, one of the Delgados' 17 grandchildren. "I meet somebody and they say, 'Oh, you're Mary's granddaughter, right?'"

The couple moved to Lansing from Texas when Mary's parents asked her to come live with them because Mary's dad was sick. At the time, Mary and Manuel had two small children.

"All these guys, you know, they had it made," said Manuel Jr., the couple's second child, referring to his younger siblings and their children. "Because by the time they got bigger, my parents, you know, they'd made it. I don't know if they told you but at first my parents, I mean, we were really a poor family."

Once all of her six children were old enough to start attending school, Mary decided to complete high school, and eventually went on to Michigan State University for a nursing degree.

Mary worked at Sparrow Health System for 20 years and eventually left to work with the Beekman Center and became a head nurse there. Mary's dedication to nursing was clear, even after she retired.

"Even when she retired, for many years they would call her up, 'Can you come and substitute?'" Manuel Jr. said. "And she would do that."

Manuel was elected as the 13th district Ingham County commissioner in 1986 and worked as one until 1992.

Manuel said he ran because there was "no Hispanic representation" in the community at the time. He'd always been involved in the community after working as a community organizer and organizing 4-H programs for MSU.

Once a week, they volunteer with the senior program at Cristo Rey Church, on Lansing's south side. They play bingo, and a lunch is served.

"I'm one of the cooks," Mary said. "And he..."

"Well, I wash the dishes," Manuel said laughing.

The family has been going to Cristo Rey Church since they arrived in Lansing. All of their children and grandchildren grew up going to the same church, and most still do.

Cristo Rey fiesta

"They are the first to get there every year, and the last to leave," said Monica Delgado, the couple's fifth child.

The Delgados have been involved in the yearly Cristo Rey Church fiesta since the beginning. Manuel Jr. said the very first fiesta was maybe 150 people. In 2023, there were at least 20,000 people who attended.

"It started out as a real small thing," Manuel Jr. said. "If you can imagine the beer tent, being on a chair, with a cooler on top of it, and a 10-by-10 tent over it, that was our beer tent."

Mary ran the fiesta for a while. The family runs the menudo booth, and Maria said that every year Mary makes menudo, a traditional Mexican soup, for thousands of the attendees.

"She makes (menudo) for the fiesta. She doesn't eat it. She doesn't like it." Maria said. "But she just makes it 'cause everyone else likes it. She does a lot of things for her family even if she doesn't care for that particular thing."

Mary teaches the dancing for a children's dance group that performs for the fiesta. She sews every costume for every child each year. Maria said that she typically begins sewing in January for the Memorial Day weekend celebration.

'I'm a nurse because of her'

Monica said that her parents installed values in her that she's kept her entire life.

"My mom was always making sure dinner was started before (Manuel) got home from work," she said. "The girls did the stuff on the inside; the guys did the stuff on the outside. We were a pretty traditional family growing up."

Mary taught Maria and her older sister, Marisol Hennig, how to sew, embroider, and many other skills.

"There was a different craft every time we visited them," Maria said. "She taught me piano growing up. There was always music in the house."

Like her grandmother, Maria is a registered nurse. She works at the Women's Hospital of Texas in Houston.

"I think I'm a nurse because of her," she said. "I went to the Beekman Center with her a few times. I saw her work with the children with feeding tubes."

While getting her teaching degree, Marisol took a break from school. She wasn't planning on going back anytime soon, but Mary and Manuel encouraged her to return.

Maria said that her grandparents' relationship was inspiring to her, and they were an example of what a healthy marriage looked like.

"I once asked them what their secret to being married so long was," she said.

Manuel's response? "I don't know where the time went."

Contact Sarah Atwood at satwood@lsj.com, or follow her on X (formerly Twitter) @sarahmatwood

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: The Delgados, a longtime Lansing couple, celebrate 70th wedding anniversary