Lowell Lawry, a soft-spoken man, didn’t hesitate for a second when asked how he met his wife.
It was 1940. He was a 17-year-old senior at Bronson High School in Kansas when a “tall, very nice-looking younger lady” came into his class.
“I was completely impressed. This was a small high school, only about 100 in the whole school. She was assigned to the seat behind mine, and eventually I got up enough courage to turn around and talk to her,” the now 94-year-old Vancouver man recalled.
Eleanor Abbey came from a farming family and had just moved to the area.
“When I first saw him I thought, ‘Wow. He’s (so) clean-looking … just a nice-looking young man. It was just wonderful,” she said.
Neither can remember what they talked about that day. “I was scared half to death,” Lowell said.
Whatever was said must have made quite an impression because the Lawrys will celebrate 75 years of marriage Dec. 11.
It’s difficult for me to wrap my mind around that milestone. Even the Lawrys are pleasantly surprised to have reached the mark.
“I don’t know that I thought, ‘Oh, this is someone I would like to marry’ at first. But (he) was someone I really enjoyed being with. And we were together almost daily,” said Eleanor Lawry, 95. “Seventy-five sounds like a long time and yet it has gone so fast.”
Decades from now, I hope that my husband and I can still vividly remember the first time we met.
It was the summer of 2012. My friends and I were at a small nightclub in McMinnville, Ore., of all places, and Jake was the only one of his friends brave enough to approach us. He was a terrible dancer at the time — two left feet and couldn’t catch a beat to save his life — but his laugh was contagious. It still is.
And although we exchanged phone numbers at the end of the night, I didn’t expect to hear from him again. Long story short, I did, not five minutes later, and like a true gentleman, he walked me home.
Now four years later, we’ve survived three cities, four moves, a half-dozen pets and many, many jobs, not to mention school, homeownership and a year of marriage in October.
Our journey thus far, though short in comparison, is decidedly much different than that of the Lawrys’ — I’m sure, in part because of the changing times.
Extensive planning went into our wedding day, right down to the guest favors. And there have been numerous conversations about the life we want to share together.
For the Lawrys, it was a much simpler time. There were no big discussions about marriage, moving across the country or starting a family.
“We just knew that we wanted to be together. I can say here, that love has extended to 75 years together. We still love each other. And I think that maybe that’s unusual,” said Eleanor, nestled on a loveseat in the couple’s living room with Lowell by her side.
Facing challenges
But their marriage hasn’t been without challenges, namely World War II.
Lowell had moved to Vancouver in the spring of 1941 to look for work. It didn’t last long, however, because he returned to Kansas to marry his sweetheart.
“And the Japanese … kind of hurried it along by destroying half of the Navy at Pearl Harbor. That was Dec. 7, and we were married Dec. 11, four days later,” he said.
They kept the ceremony low-key and were married at the courthouse in Fort Scott, Kan., by a pastor and good friend.
The couple were married 14 months and expecting their first child when Lowell was called for duty in February 1943. He served in the U.S. Army’s 11th Airborne Division.
Eleanor stayed with her parents while her son, Don, was born. Then she moved back to Bronson and rented a house until Lowell returned. He was gone 33 months, a year and half of which was spent overseas.
“She wrote a letter to me every day I was gone. I didn’t get them all, but she wrote them,” Lowell said.
Eleanor walked to the post office twice a day to see if she had a letter, she said, and read the newspaper to find out anything about Lowell’s division. She passed the time with about a dozen other Army wives, she said.
When Lowell returned home, it was challenging for them to pick up where they left off.
“Coming home from three years in the Army in combat, it has an effect on a person. We had to get readjusted a little bit after that,” he said.
But within a year, the couple moved to Vancouver and welcomed their second child, a daughter named Kathy.
“I didn’t hesitate a bit moving 2,000 miles away because I loved him,” Eleanor said. “We made a commitment to each other. We knew without saying it that we would be together forever.”
Eleanor worked as a secretary in the Evergreen school district for 23 years, and Lowell drove a truck for a Portland outfit. They both retired about 35 years ago.
Their two children still live in the area. The couple also have five grandchildren, six great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild.
Like all couples, the Lawrys have bickered over the years, but they rarely disagree about anything anymore. I wonder what that must be like.
And they strive to keep the romance alive with small gestures.
“Every morning Lowell gets up about an hour or so ahead of me. … I go in where he is sitting in our TV room. …- I sit on his lap for a while, and we just love each other, sitting together. It’s just a precious time,” Eleanor said.
Their advice for a long, happy and healthy marriage is not to have a “straying eye.”
“Your focus should always be on your mate and not somebody else,” Eleanor said. “If you disagree, you should get that settled soon and not let it fester.”
When I shared the Lawrys’ story with Jake, he said it sounded like something from a movie — love at first sight.
I agree with him and with Eleanor’s notion that 75 years with the same person is a little unusual.
And although it’s difficult to compare the Lawrys’ experiences with our own, one thought resonated with us both.
Love is successful when you put work into it.
