Celebrating 70 years of marriage

When a marriage announcement ran in Camas, Wash. Newspaper announcing the marriage of Earl Wasson to Marie Blunt, Harry S. Truman was the U.S. President, the cost of a gallon of gasoline was under a quarter and Perry Como’s Prisoner of Love topped the Billboard Charts.

A lot has changed in those 70 years, but one thing that hasn’t is the devotion to each other that Earl and Marie share. Last Tuesday at the Hi-Line Retirement Center, the couple celebrated their 70th year of marriage with cake and the company of family members.

“It was a very nice party,” said Marie.

On January 19, 1946, Earl and Marie were joined in holy matrimony and though Earl knew the instant that he met Marie that he wanted her to be his wife, the union would have to take a backseat to his commitment to his country.

A few years before the wedding, Marie was a senior in high school working at the Phillips County Hospital and Earl was working in the mines of Zortman. One of Earl’s co-workers was injured on the job and Earl drove the man to the hospital and for the first time the couple set eyes on each other.

“We visited a little at the hospital,” Marie remembers. “And that night, when I got off work, he was there waiting for me. From there we together until he left for the service in April of that year.”

Earl enlisted in the U.S. Army near the end of World War II and became a member of the 830th Engineer Battalion while in the European Theatre. Before he was deployed overseas, Earl was sent to the west coast before being shipped out and Marie followed. Marie said she went to live with her sister in Washington State with the hopes, slim as they were, that she would be able to see her future husband before he left for war. The North-Pacific meeting was not to be, but bonds of their relationship were so strong that two corresponded the whole time Earl was overseas and when he returned stateside in 1946, the two were soon wed.

Marie, now 91, said the attraction to Earl is a simple one.

“I just liked him,” she said.

Earl, who will turn 99 on February 28, admitted that his choice was just as simple.

“She was pretty,” he said.

While Earl was at war, the couple maintained their relationship through letters written back and forth. Marie said that when Earl returned stateside that he immediately wanted to marry Marie, but Marie admitted that she “had to think a little bit.”

“He came back to Malta for a little while and I was in Camas and then he came to me a little while later and we got married,” Marie said. “It was meant to be.”

The couple moved back to Malta fulltime in 1948 and entered into a ranch partnership known as Ranch Bench Farms with three other couples. Through the years, the Wassons bought the other partners out to own about 8,000 acres of land. For the next 30-years the couple worked the ranch before retiring in 1978. They built a home in Malta where they lived for years and have lived in the Hi-Line Retirement Center for the past three years.

During their 70-years of marriage, Marie and Earl had three children – daughter Linda and sons Alan and Kent – and the couple has seven grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.

“We got more grandkids and great-grandkids than we can keep track of,” Earl said.

Though they had been married for 70 years, Marie said that she isn’t often asked the question of what makes for a strong marriage, but rather hears “most people don’t even live that long” when the topic is brought up.

“We just get along good,” Marie said of the secret of success. “We had our little ins and outs, but we have always gotten along good.”

“We were always too damned busy to have any problems,” Earl added.