By Dianna Marder
Knight Ridder Newspapers

PHILADELPHIA

Twenty years after the death of her first husband, Alvina "Billie" Gordon prepared for another walk down the aisle.

She removed with some effort the gold band that had insinuated itself on the third finger of her left hand since 1943 and put it in a box with her other jewelry. Then she and her fiance, Joseph F. King Sr., boarded a limo for the church.

At 79 and 75, respectively, Billie and Joe appear to be on the threshold of a tiny but heartwarming blip on the demographic horizon: more marriages among the over-70 crowd.

"We already know that people are living longer," said Helen Fisher, a Rutgers anthropologist and author whose book "Anatomy of Love" became a four-part series on TBS.

But demographers who anticipated that these aging adults would be infirm, Fisher said, are instead seeing people who remain in relatively good health well into their 80s.

"As a result, we have a huge population of people experiencing, essentially, an extended middle age," Fisher said.

They have the energy, awareness, ability and inclination to be sexually active, Fisher said. They're going places, meeting each other, and despite the continuation of the so-called marriage tax, some are even heading for the altar.

Consider these recent examples:

· Anna Sheahan was a first-time bride at 84 when she married 70-year-old Bob McDermott in Philadelphia last October.

· Marion Costigan, 80, met her sweetheart, Walter Frank, 87, just days after moving into a Cherry Hill, N.J., assisted-living community. They were married July 8, 2000.

· Pauline Salvatore, 82, and Karl Kuhwald, 81, of Havertown, Pa., met at a dance where she was the teacher. They were wed Feb. 17, 2001.

· Rabbi Max Hausen, 75, was married on May 6 to a veritable youngster, 68-year-old Shirley Kimball, at the Main Line Reform Temple.

"We suspect we're at the very beginning of a trend and we're trying to document it," said Simona Hill, a sociologist at Susquehanna University. "It may take another four or five years for the numbers to come in."

"All the indicators point to the fact that older single people are getting married," Hill said. "It's very positive and hopeful."

It's a phenomenon that's hard to document. Neither the National Center for Health Statistics nor the Census Bureau keeps tabs on marriage among those over 70.

"The mere fact that we have no data says something," according to Fisher. "We don't keep records because we don't expect older people to remarry. We don't expect them to be romantic and sexual. This trend is very new."

Anecdotally, at least, the evidence is there.

Martin H. Belsky, dean of the law school at Tulsa College, sees it.

"I give talks (on the elderly and the law) at Jewish and Italian retirement centers," he says, "And I see a larger number coupling off - more than I saw, say, five years ago. The numbers are bigger than they were and they're getting bigger."

The shift could be fleeting, though. When today's baby boomers (now turning 50) reach 70 and above they may be just as interested in sex and relationships but less likely to make it legal, said Larry Bumpas, a demographer at the University of Wisconsin.

Boomers virtually invented free love, he said. They've married, divorced, remarried - and lived together outside of marriage.

"My guess is we'll see increased cohabitation in the absence of marriage when the boomers move through," Bumpas said.

But in the meantime, the essential elements for love among the elderly are in place: technical supports in the form of testosterone, Viagra and estrogen. Social acceptance of women's - even older women's - sexuality.

And opportunity.

Where former generations of aging single adults lived with their children, today's more often live alone. And as any teenager will tell you, having your own place makes it easier to have a sex life. And the cell phone, Fisher says, lets older men and women pretend they are home when their children call to check up on them.

Most important, says Scott Bass, a gerontologist and dean of the Graduate School at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, is that our need for relationships, for touch and intimacy, never ends.

"It's electrifying," said Walter Frank of Cherry Hill, who remarried at 87. "I'm just a kid now, compared to what I was."

At any age, the decision to marry is a sign of hope, Fisher says.

"Why would you marry in your 70s if you thought you had no future?" Fisher said. "These days, if you're 70 you can expect to live another 10 to 15 years in relatively good health. Why spend it alone?"

Perhaps the biggest drawback is the gender gap.

In the 65 to 69 age group, the number of men and women is fairly equal: 118 women for every 100 men. But after 85, the numbers change dramatically. Among the 85 and older population, there are 237 women for every 100 men, according to the Administration on Aging.

Mitzi Werther works with older adults enrolled in college courses through Richland College of the Dallas County Community College system in Texas. At 68, she recently married a 72-year-old.

New widowers, Werther says, are approached by single women the day of their wives' funerals.

"Single women are following the obits," she says. "It's hilarious and sad at the same time."

Relationships, Werther says, "are more critical than ever at our age. Our kids are moving away, the grandkids certainly move away. All you're left with is e-mail, and it's lonely."

Still, given the tax disadvantages and the potential problems with inheritance, why take the legal step of marrying?

"For our generation, there is a greater sense of security when you are married," said Rabbi Hausen. "It's an expression of the depth of our commitment, so we prefer to be married."

Pauline Salvatore and Karl Kuhwald were together for nine years before they married. When they met, she'd been alone three years; for him, it had been just five months.

"A lot of people do look down on you if you're not married and you're sleeping together," he said.

But what prompted him to propose was a change in his health. He suffered a stroke and recovered fully. But following that illness, he and Pauline knew they wanted to be truly responsible for each other, including making medical decisions.

Billie Gordon and Joe King never intended to live together. They met at church and dated, but it took Joe a year to get up the nerve to kiss her.

Then Joe had knee replacement surgery, and Billie moved him into her extra bedroom.

Billie was aware of some gossip, and she wished there was a way to prove they had separate bedrooms. But she got over that.

"We both take our religion very seriously," Billie says. And Joe nods. "We only have to answer to God," she says.

Sex, Joe says, is "the least of our worries. It's nice, but you don't have to have it."

Billie chimes in. "It's nice to be held and cuddled and we do that," she says. "It doesn't have to culminate, you know."

On April 21 at St. Martin of Tours, the Rev. William Kaufman of Resurrection of Our Lord Church celebrated the wedding Mass for Billie and Joe. In the last four months, the priest said, he'd officiated at the weddings of two other over-70 couples.

"They're living longer and enjoying life," said Father Kaufman, 53. "They want to share their golden years."

The matron of honor was Billie's sister, Emma, who was married for the second time just four years ago - at the age of 73.