NATCHEZ — Friday was another quiet day for Jacob and Amanda Eidt on Myrtle Avenue.

When The Dart landed near the house where Jacob was born, he was swaying on the front porch swing, holding a coffee cup while Amanda baked cupcakes inside.

After a 44-year marriage, Jacob, 72, feels lucky to have spotted Amanda in New Orleans nearly half a century ago, he said, especially since she came from another world away in Honduras.

One dance led to another between the couple — then in their early 20s — and they dated for three years before getting married and settling in Natchez.

“When you’re young you don’t know whether a young person has the skills to tell if someone is the right person for (him or her), but sometimes you get lucky,” Jacob said of meeting Amanda. “I feel like I was very lucky.”

They met aboard an excursion boat called The President.

“I remember; I never will forget,” he said before telling the story of meeting Amanda.

Jacob said he spotted her standing with a group of her friends. He was nervous at first because he said the Hispanic men with whom she was standing usually tended not to like “the Gringos.”

“But I thought, ‘I don’t care, that’s a pretty little lady right there,’” he recalled.

He asked Amanda to dance, and she said yes.

“One dance led to another, we started dating, and now we are two old fuddy duddies,” Jacob said.

Amanda said she came to New Orleans from Honduras when she was 19 or 20 as a student.

Honduras was even more underdeveloped when she was young, Amanda said. Her father was the mayor of Puerto Cortez and a Colonel in the Honduran Army.

Her life in America took shape after the meeting on The President.

“I got a job, and then I met Mr. Jake,” she said, and the rest was history.

Jacob said he continued to make trips to New Orleans to visit Amanda for three years before they were married just outside New Orleans in Gretna, La.

The wedding was not very expensive, Jacob said, but sometimes the biggest weddings that last the longest might not produce the longest marriages.

The couple lived on State Street and Elm Street before moving into his parents’ house on Myrtle Drive before his mother and father died in order to take care of them.

They have two sons, Manfred, who lives in Natchez, and Jacob Ivan, who lives in Dallas, where he is head of the German department at University of Dallas.

“I’m retired now, and I live my quiet life,” Jacob said.

Jacob worked at Armstrong Tire and Fidelity Tire before retiring in 1997, he said.

Their activities rotate around different household projects.

“I’m restoring an antique truck right now. After that project, I’m restoring this old house again,” Jacob said.

Amanda said since her grandson will be on a Boy Scouts trip on Father’s Day, she was making cupcakes to celebrate the holiday with dessert Friday night.

Amanda said she feels lucky to have found Jacob long ago, too.

“He’s a good young man,” she said, looking at him next to her on the porch swing.

“It’s good that she still sees me as young,” Jacob laughed.