Complex sentence: Upon winning the election, Elliott and his wife purchased a residence in the nation's capitol, and they would spend the next 16 years of their lives traveling back and forth between Washington, D.C. and Jasper.
Split into simpler sentences: Upon winning the election, Elliott and his wife purchased a residence in the nation's capitol. They spent the next sixteen years of their lives traveling back and forth between Washington, D.C., and Jasper.