They’ve been together longer than many lifetimes, longer than most marriages, as employer and employee — but they’ve become like family.

“We’ve had a good 56 years,” Nina Nosser Dottley said of the woman who has been by her side through keeping a house, cooking meals, raising five children and making a home.

Marie Smith went to work as a maid for Dottley and her husband, John “Kayo” Dottley, in 1953, just after the young couple had their second child, Debbie.

Through the years, their relationship has grown.

Smith, having a son of her own, became “the other mother” of Dottley’s five children and was affectionately nicknamed ReRe.

“They were a lot of fun. They were good kids,” Smith said. “That’s why we’re still here.”

Smith had her rules, though. And, as Debbie Brumitt recalled, in the summertime she often locked the Dottley children out of the house so she could mop floors in the evenings.

“We would get so mad because she wouldn’t let us in,” said Brumitt.

Smith, who once worked from 9 to 5 seven days a week at the Dottley home on Wisteria Drive, now works part time there, Brumitt said, helping out with laundry and other chores.

After several injuries and turning 80, Dottley and Smith agree they move much slower these days, but they’ve never stopped trying to help each other.

On June 7, Dottley broke her hip and spent 4 1/2 weeks in the hospital and recovery.

“I really missed her when she broke her hip,” Smith said.

Before that setback, Dottley was handling the laundry — so Smith wouldn’t have to go downstairs to the laundry room.

“I try to make it easier on her,” Dottley said. “She’s had a knee replacement, and she has had a broken hip, too.”

Smith has been there through it all, even when the family moved to Chicago 56 year ago.

Dottley’s husband of 60 years, Kayo, was playing as a running back for the Chicago Bears — and Smith joined them in the Windy City. She had an aunt who lived in the area, too.

“We went on the Panama Limited,” Dottley said. “She (Smith) slept with Debbie, and I slept with my oldest child.”

“ReRe, we bonded!” Brumitt said.

“I loved all of them, but I picked out one,” Smith said of Brumitt, “the long-haired child.”

Three years later, Kayo Dottley injured his knee and the family returned to Vicksburg.

When she went to work for the Dottleys, Smith said, she made it clear that the children would have to clean up after themselves. The one time clothes were left on the floor, Brumitt said, “she hid them from us for about a month.”

When asked about the clothes, Smith simply replied, “I don’t know. Maybe the floor ate them.”

And, if the children were unruly, she wouldn’t hesitate to call for backup.

“She would threaten to tell my mother when she got home,” Brumitt said. “My mother would threaten to tell my daddy when he got home. So, you had to worry all day if ReRe was going to really tell Mother. You had to worry all night if Mother was going to tell Daddy.

“You never got into trouble,” Brumitt said. “They just worried us to death.”

As they recall fond memories and look to the future, Dottley and Smith say, for as long as they can, they will be doing what they’ve always have done — wiping, sweeping and making every holiday meal together, and shopping from time to time.

Smith’s favorite is making kibbie, a Lebanese dish.

“The key is the onions,” she said.

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Contact Tish Butts at tbutts@vicksburgpost.com