Posted on 11/24/2005 5:56:02 PM PST by paulat
70 years later, 'secret lovers' still wed
BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- When 19-year-old Ron Ramey fell in love with 14-year-old Marcella, doubters said it would never last - they were just too far apart in age. But the young couple didn't listen, spiriting from Nezperce to New Meadows to get married in secret. On Saturday, the Rameys will celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary.
He's 90 and she's 85, both in good health. And the romance that began so long ago is far from losing its luster.
"I still love him so much," Marcella told The Idaho Statesman. "When we go to bed at night, we always hold hands. 'I love you' are the last words we say to each other."
Their wedding anniversary has fallen on Thanksgiving seven times since their wedding in 1935.
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"We're thankful to have had all these years together," Ron said. "We had no idea that it would last this long."
When they started dating, he worked at a meat market for a dollar a day, and she worked at a drug store for 10 cents an hour. One of Ron's duties was delivering ice, and Marcella would leave the icebox open - letting the precious ice melt - so he'd have to come by more often.
He proposed in a letter, and Marcella's response was simple.
"I wrote back and said, 'Yes, yes, yes,'" she said. "We had a friend drive us to New Meadows to get married so it wouldn't be in the paper in Nezperce. We didn't want anyone to know because I was so young. My folks were really put out when they found out, but in those days, people wanted kids to leave home because money was so scarce. It was one less mouth to feed."
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The newlyweds moved in with Ron's father and stepmother in Grangeville, where Ron worked as a dishwasher and part-time cook. Eventually, Marcella's aunt offered her a job at a bakery in Emmett, and the couple moved.
By then, they had their first child, a boy they named Marsh. The place where they lived in Emmett was so small that the kitchen, bed and shower were all in one room.
"I worked nights and slept days," Ron said. "When the baby cried, I could reach out and rock him without getting out of bed."
"He made $15 a week," Marcella added. "We never went anywhere because we couldn't afford it. The grocer let us charge $5 a week, and he'd throw in a box of candy. That was the only treat we ever got.
Water was drawn from a pump, which often froze in the winter. The weather would turn so cold that the nails on the inside of the house would be covered in frost, and without money for blankets the Rameys stuffed newspaper in the bed for insulation.
After three years in Emmett, they moved to Boise, with Marcella little more than a teenager.
"Mom made me clothes from hand-me-downs that had come from my aunt's," their daughter, Kay Gaskell, said. "And those were clothes they'd received from their cousins."
Though Gaskell often had to put cardboard in the soles of her shoes because of holes, she never felt poor, she said.
"We had the love of our parents, and they made a beautiful, loving home for us," she said.
For all but those first 14 years of her life, Marcella said, they've never been apart. Now they live in Boise, close to their children.
"People don't say 'Ron and Marcella.' They say 'Ron-Marcella' because we're always together," she said. "Sometimes I worry about which one of us will go first. I tell him he's not going anywhere without me."
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Information from: The Idaho Statesman, http://www.idahostatesman.com
You are forgiven...I am far into stuffing stupor myself....
Ohmigosh~that is great!! LOL
Chickensoup wrote:
I think that they should be able to marry and work from the age of 14 on.
To which I replied:
And how would you feel if these 14-year-old girls decide to "work" in the porn industry, hmmm?
To which you asked this stupid question:
What in the world does that have to do with getting married young?
Look at the top of this post for your answer. And next time, read the damned message you're replying to.
happy thanksgiving...now chill
You too!
now chill
Sorry...asinine questions bug me.
okay...that explains it :)
Your comment about the porn industry seems to be totally unrelated to anything on this thread, so I'm not sure where you get off calling other people's questions asinine, but carry on....
You do have a point, however. I should ratchet it down a bit. I just get really annoyed when people post messages that children (actual children...under the age of 18) should be accorded the same rights and responsibilities as an over-18 adult. These days, especially with the way things are going, that sort of thing all but guarantees child exploitation. And yeah, it gets me incredibly short-fused.
Go ahead. Do it. I'll wait.
I was 17 and he was 23, we have been married 48 years in Dec.
Go ahead. Tell me what you think someone means when they say that 14-year-old kids should be able to marry and work. You tell me what that would lead to.
Asinine indeed.
I'm so seriously confused PC . . . I don't really see *WHY* you brought porn into it in the first place.
I see what you're saying . . . but in most states people can work at 16, but the porn industry still requires 18 (or is it 21?) . . . so what does the age of being able to work have to do with it?
I'm not trying to ask stupid questions, just clarification. So apologies if you see my question as stupid, but my daddy always told me there were no stupid questions.
You seem to ignore that simple and incredibly salient fact.
I wonder why.
See message #2 on the thread.
It's because our kids have been raised without all the responsibilities our parents and grandparents had when they were teenagers. Even we didn't have those kinds of responsibilities when we were younger. The Depression and World War II were defining moments in the lives of our grandparents and parents, and they were forced to grow up fast.
There is no comparison between the maturity of a 19 yr old from 1920 and one today.
I did! Chicken Soup said NOTHING about porn. . just working at 14.
Working at 14 doesn't have anything to do with the porn industry. The right to work age is 15 or 16. . .the legality of working in porn is 18 or 21. Read *my* post doll.
Happy Turkey Day :)
They did it in the 40s 50s 60s 70s and were preparing themselves in the 80s and 90s for the 2000s!
Give yourselves a pat on the back!
Are they not the greatest?
Thanks a million boys and girls!
There are already 14 and 15 year olds having children without the benefit of marriage, and some teenagers would be more productive if they were working for a living than they are at school.
I was going to say something but I decided that letting you continue to run on at the mouth would be funnier.
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