She was leaving work, and he was waiting to pick-up his mother from her job. It was there outside Sun Rubber that Wyatt first saw Ruth.

"I saw this pretty blue eyed, curly haired, tailor-made slacks wearing girl coming out every day, and I said, 'Boy, I'd sure like to have a date with her.' I asked my mom if she knew who I was talking about, and she didn't. Then my friend got a job there, so I asked him. And he said, 'oh yeah, that's Brownie.'"

"He fixed it up that we would go for a ride after she got off of work, and that's how we started going together. She didn't particularly care for me at first, but I guess I grew on her."

They went together for two years, and finally she agreed to marry him on August 14, 1949 at the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Barberton. After their wedding, they rented their first apartment for $35 a month. A year later after Wyatt was drafted into the Marines for the Korean War, Ruth wrote to tell him the rent had been raised, so Wyatt told her to go pick out a house. They raised their three children in that home and lived there until they moved to Pleasant View Health Care Center. This was the nursing home where Wyatt visited dressed as Santa Claus for more than 25 years and where Ruth volunteered in the gift shop for more than 20.

Wyatt and Ruth celebrated 67 years of marriage on August 14, 2016 with their children, five grandchildren, and five great grandchildren. I was fortunate enough to meet with the couple before their party to capture portraits and flip through their wedding album. The teddy bears at the end of this blog are made from Wyatt's service uniform and Ruth's wedding dress.

Their advice for keeping a marriage working for nearly seven decades? "It's a give and take proposition," Wyatt said. "Some days it's 90/10: other days it's 50/50. It just depends on the day, but we get along pretty good."

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