Vows That Lasted : Couples Tell Secrets of Their Long Marriages

In the darkest days of the Depression when they met and fell in love, Chelsey and Anna Lhevan of Fountain Valley gave little thought to the hardships that lay ahead when they discussed marriage. A traditional wedding ceremony was out of the question. Like everyone else they knew, they had no money. Neither did their parents.

It was 1932. She was the 18-year-old daughter of a tailor. He was a 21-year-old plumber making $15 a week. Determined and optimistic, they packed their suitcases, themselves and two chaperones into Chelsey’s two-seater Ford coupe a few days before Halloween and eloped.

“We were kids, what did we know?” said Chelsey. It seems they knew plenty. Their courtship lasted six weeks. Their marriage has lasted 54 years and it’s still going strong.

Grace and Clayton Ries of Brea kept their marriage a secret for an entire year so that Grace could quietly finish out her junior term at Brea Olinda High School. During that year, only Clayton’s brother knew that the high school sweethearts had sneaked away one Saturday morning in December of 1931 to Ventura County to apply for a marriage license. They returned to Ventura the following weekend to awaken a minister so they could exchange vows and drive home before being missed. It’s been 54 years and nine months since that day, and they remember it as if it were yesterday.

From those shaky beginnings in the thinnest of economic times, two couples forged lasting relationships with their mates that defy the statistics. They’ve reached a milestone that few will ever see--50 years of marriage to the same partner. In a county that ranks above the national average in divorce, those who do stick it out for better or for worse belong to a matrimonial minority--making these veteran couples “sort of national treasures,” as USC researcher Margaret Campbell put it.

Nationally, spouses in only one in five marriages will stay alive long enough to even get a chance to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversaries, given current projections.

U.S. Census figures show that in 1980, Orange County had 160,913 residents age 65 or older. Less than 45% of them were married. Married couples age 75 and older represented just 12% of the total senior population in Orange County that year--the most recent for which Census figures are available.

What compels couples to stay together five decades and beyond is slowly coming into focus for researchers. What they’re learning is something many veteran couples already know: Love is only one piece of the puzzle. And to many in this older generation, ending a marriage was never a consideration.

Sprinkled throughout the county are couples who have glided past the 50-year mark with no thought to divorce except when it happened to others--such as their children.

“In our day, you never thought of getting divorced,” said Eva Schneider, 78, of Costa Mesa. She and her husband, Charles, 79, recently celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary.

Study at USC

However, one study, begun in 1971 and still under way at USC’s Andrus Gerontology Center, has yielded some preliminary data that suggest, not surprisingly, that those who are better off financially, physically and psychologically are more likely to stay married than those who are not.

Campbell, an Andrus research associate and past project director of the USC Longitudinal Study of Three Generations, said the findings are based on the study’s national sampling of 2,044 respondents.

Rosalie Gilford, who heads the Gerontology Program at Cal State Fullerton, has been studying marital happiness along the life course ever since she joined the USC project as a student. She now has a doctorate in sociology, and, in addition to her teaching duties at Cal State, she remains a research associate on the USC project.

“You ask people why they’ve stayed together and they respond as if the marriage has a life of its own,” she said. “One of the first things people mention in an interview is a feeling of pride that they have managed to maintain their marriage through thick and thin.”

But how? Couples cite a variety of unscientific reasons.

“I love her,” said Ries matter-of-factly of his 72-year-old wife, who was a bride at 17.

“After 50 years, I go along,” said Chelsey Lhevan, winking at his wife, Anna. “We don’t argue.”

“We have the same hobbies, we like the same friends and we like to help people,” said Eva Schneider.

“We never get under each other’s feet,” observed 91-year-old Lloyd Richards of Laguna Niguel of his 69-year marriage to Mary, five months his junior.

The researchers’ most current data, gathered in 1984 from seniors first surveyed in 1971, offer additional clues to why some marriages last.

‘Children Put a Strain’

“Timing and their transition to marriage and parenthood seem to be important,” said Campbell of USC. “The older they got married and the older they were when their first child was born, the more likely they are to stay married.”

“Let’s face it, children put a strain on your marriage,” said Grace Ries, who looks forward to their visits as much as the next grandmother but remembers the sacrifices that she and her husband made during their early child-rearing years in the Depression. “We ate mustard greens and beans so that we could give her the things that she needed,” she said of their first child, born four years into their marriage.

The Schneiders, who tied the knot at ages 18 and 19, waited 10 years to have the first of their two children. As parents, they joined their sons in outdoor activities and scouting. Eva was a den mother and Charles made headlines when he became an Eagle Scout along with his boys. “Close family ties” have always been important to them, Eva said.

Common to those with enduring and reportedly happy marriages are fewer children, strong feelings that family demands come before all others and “close and loving relationships with adult children,” Gilford said.

A possible explanation for this, according to UC Irvine psychologist Karen Rook, an associate professor of social ecology, is the support system that children provide for their parents. “The kids can help buffer them from stresses,” she noted.

Frank and Eleanor Galloway are so close to their three offspring that they socialize frequently with the two who live nearby. The Fountain Valley couple’s seven-month courtship as 19-year-olds was followed by marriage at the age of 20 with the permission of their parents.

Day Care Dimly Viewed

All three Galloway children have families of their own, and that means 11 grandsons for Eleanor and Frank. The couple are uncomfortable with the trend toward greater reliance on day care among young married couples. “People should look after their own children,” Frank said.

Chelsey Lhevan remembers with nostalgia the war years when he toted his family around with him from one military camp to another. As a plumber, he helped construct camps throughout the South in places such as Chester, S.C., and Richmond, Va. “Most of the fellas there were running around. They’d left their wives and families at home, but I wanted mine with me,” he said.

“It was fun,” said wife Anna, recalling the trail of bungalows and hotel rooms and the adventures they had along the way.

Aside from the children, Gilford said, survey results indicate that spouses in happy long-term marriages view the husband as the chief authority figure. “You could say they are quite traditional,” she noted.

Lillian Bonnello, 70, who recently moved with her husband Salvatore, 74, to a mobile home park in Chino after 12 years in Orange, says that after 51 years of marriage she still cooks three meals a day. “He doesn’t like to go out to eat. . . . I still want to make him happy.”

To make her happy, Salvatore takes his wife dancing three or four times each week at various senior clubs.

“We do have our disagreements; we’d be lying if we said otherwise,” she admitted during a break between dances. “Perseverance,” he said, is what separates them from couples who divorce. “We still work at our marriage,” she added.

‘Coping Skills’ Used

In the language used by researchers, the Bonnellos bring what are known as “coping skills” to their marriage.

“These interpersonal skills involve the ability to negotiate a relationship with a spouse, the ability to give up what one wants to accommodate the other and exchange rewards with each other,” Gilford said.

After several decades together, some couples are masters at it.

By their own account, the Richardses of Laguna Niguel, born at the turn of the century, have led a charmed life together. Unlike many of their contemporaries cemented together in struggle, they contend that they’ve rarely suffered. During their five-year courtship, Lloyd peddled his bicycle the two miles to Mary’s parents’ Colorado farm almost every night. They had an “old-fashioned country wedding” in 1917 in front of the fireplace in the parlor of her folks’ home. During their courtship he was making $11 a week at the Ford Model-T garage. He spent $55 on her engagement ring.

He was an aerial photographer during the war years and held various positions for the railroads. His working life was capped with a 15-year stint as chief field attendant at the Long Beach Municipal Airport. Mary, meanwhile, kept the home fires burning, cooking, cleaning and caring for the children. “I always did like housework,” she said.

Today, Lloyd shares the household duties, vacuuming, dusting and making beds. Mary still cooks and now takes out the trash so that she can chat with her girlfriends at the curb.

Dividing household chores is evident in many post-retirement marriages, according to psychologist Rook. “A little research suggests that in old age marriage works better if couples have an egalitarian relationship, sharing in both the decision-making and the household chores,” she noted.

Swept Up in Dance Craze

Life for the Schneiders of Costa Mesa has been equally agreeable. When they were well into their 50s--a time when many are slowing down--the two were swept up in the ballroom dance craze and entered and won dozens of contests. At one point they even traveled to Europe to watch the competitors and perform at the world championships. They’ve since taken up square dancing. She makes all their costumes and he tape-records the music they dance to.

At home, “he lives in the garage and I live in the kitchen,” said Eva, noting that the couple also work on joint projects and spend many happy hours just puttering around the house. Though Charles was the family breadwinner--he retired in 1971 as chief mechanic after 25 years at AMF Voit--Eva is proud of having worked for a time in a television factory to help pay off the mortgage on their home. “I didn’t want her to go to work, but she insisted,” said Charles, smiling at his wife.

Paying off the house was also the reason that Grace Ries went to work as an inspector at a rubber plant and continued in her job until retirement age to help supplement the family income. Long ago, she and her husband worked out the things each would pay for, so to this day, they say, they don’t argue over money.

In fact, none of the couples interviewed admitted to conflicts over finances. “You have to live within your limits,” advised Lillian Bonnello, who shares her husband’s enthusiasm for shopping around and comparing prices. She also worked outside the home, as a dressmaker, until a few years ago.

In these families, the women may have earned a supplemental income, but their jobs were never viewed as careers. The wife was never the sole supporter.

Views of Earlier Era

In evaluating factors that contribute to long-term marriages among today’s older population, researchers say they can’t ignore the way society viewed marriages and women’s roles before World War II. With few economic alternatives open to women and widespread regard for the institution of marriage, women were expected to marry and couples were expected to stay together, explained Rook.

Added USC’s Campbell: “There was not the viable social role for women that there is today.” For those women, selecting a husband, not a career, was considered all-important.

Anna Lhevan laughs when recalling her mother’s advice to her the day she met Chelsey. He was the handsome one in a group of young men who had come calling at her parents’ farm. “Mom said, ‘Pick the one with the dirtiest hands. . . . He’ll always be able to make a living.’ And I did.”

According to researcher Gilford, “Women, especially, were reared in an era in which they were taught to value highly the durability and stability of marriage and to avoid divorce at all costs.”

That background makes it hard for the Bonnellos, the Galloways, the Rieses, the Lhevans and the Schneiders to understand why some of their own children’s marriages haven’t lasted.

“A lot of young people go into marriage thinking that if it doesn’t work, they’ll get out,” said Grace Ries. “We knew we didn’t have to stay married. When we made our vows, to us, they were sacred. We meant to keep them.”

“It’s a different world today,” Frank Galloway says with a shrug.

“It’s a different life today,” echoed Lillian Bonnello. “Today’s young people don’t seem to understand commitment. If they don’t get what they want right away, they separate.”

Finances a Factor

Although researchers have searched for a link, none has ever been established to show that marital bliss can be handed down from one generation to the next, according to Gilford. The absence of such evidence, she said, tends to point to environmental and social factors as more likely influences.

Financial considerations also keep couples together--or, to be more precise, keep wives from leaving their husbands. Older women, who typically do not have a history of employment, “tend to have few alternatives to an older marriage,” said Gilford. Given women’s presence in today’s work force, the future may be vastly different, she noted.

And what of the trials of the older couples’ era--the world wars, the Depression? “Some argue that precisely because they’ve survived these hardships they’ve stayed together,” Rook said.

The Rieses believe that’s true. “Financial struggle puts you closer together,” Grace said.

“Marriage is like a business--you have to work at it, you don’t just have a perennial honeymoon for 50 years,” said Frank Galloway. When conflicts arise for the Galloways, they try to iron them out with humor. When that fails, they go to separate corners until someone gives in. And yet they say they are each other’s best friends and, just like Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, they never go to sleep mad.