Ohio Couple’s Marriage Lasts 65 Years, and Counting : Their Love ‘Flowers’ Into Family of 101

There’s something warm in Ruth and Lloyd Flowers’ house, and it isn’t just the gas stove in the living room.

Rows of 8-by-10 photographs hang on a wall near the front door; a few dozen smaller photos are clustered on the mantel.

They’re all members of the Flowers’ family--all 101 of them. In 65 years of marriage, the blooms on Ruth and Lloyd’s family tree have been prolific.

“What’s kept us together all these years?” Lloyd asks, grinning broadly. “Well, I guess love would be one thing. And the kids would be the other.”

Met by the Mailbox

There was plenty of both in the Flowers house from the time Lloyd Flowers wed Ruth Burrier, Nov. 29, 1923. Five years earlier, Lloyd had met his neighbor’s girl out by the mailbox--one of the few ways to meet nice girls in rural Licking County at the time--and had almost gone broke outbidding his brother Harvey for Ruth’s pies at a local charity auction.

Within a year of their vow-taking, the Flowers had their first child. They named her Virginia.

Then came Roy, Chester, Janey, Naomi, Delores, Esther, Juanita, Vivian, Donna, Kenny, Phyllis, Walter, Sharon and Patty. In all, there were 16. A son named for Lloyd failed to live past infancy.

A former neighbor, Ila O’Flaherty, was awakened more than once by Lloyd tapping on her window in the middle of the night, asking if he could “borrow” her for a couple hours to see another baby into the world.

Why have so many children? Why not, replies Lloyd, adding, “Nobody ever saw me crying, did they?”

Ran Dairy Farm, Coal Mine

But they might have seen him working. He did everything he could to make a dollar. He ran a dairy farm, leased a coal mine and ran a gasoline service station, grocery store, saw mill and swimming pool. He also worked in a factory, drove a school bus and did carpentry.

Not all at the same time, of course.

“Us girls would sleep four to a bed,” says Juanita Lynn, a middle child.

Clothes were handed down and handed down--sometimes from other families.

Ruth would have inspection every morning before school, checking for dirt behind the ears. She ran a tight ship, ever conscious of the “dirty” stigma attached to very large families.

Spankings for the Naughty

She kept a willow switch over the stove for use on misbehaving parties.

“Sometimes she spanked us all to make sure she got the right one,” remembers Kenny.

Ruth and Lloyd completed their family in 1946, the year Lloyd says home deliveries for babies were outlawed.

“We’d had all of them for $25, except the last one, which cost us $35,” Lloyd said.

Today, Lloyd is 86 and Ruth is 85. They have 41 grandchildren and 45 great-grandchildren.

Built Own House

The couple live in the house Lloyd and his boys built in 1974. Virginia, their oldest, cares for them. Sometimes, she confides, she’ll catch them kissing in the breakfast nook or holding hands in the living room. Even without the buds, the Flowers’ love is apparently still in bloom.

They’re proud of their children, proud of the life they’ve built.

At a party to celebrate their anniversary they reviewed all 65 years one by one. They couldn’t find a single thing they’d change.

“No,” said Lloyd, a mischievous smile on his face, “I wouldn’t mind going over it all again.”