‘It takes a lot of glue and gum’

COTTONWOOD — The marriage has lasted 70 years, but when Orval and Pauline Schlader first met all those years ago, it was anything but love at first sight.

He had been raised on the family farm near the now-extinct Camas Prairie town of Russell, about 10 miles north of Nezperce. Not until he was in the eighth grade and the family moved to the big city of Nezperce did he get acquainted with other kids his age.

She had lived in or near Nezperce all her life. Also in eighth grade, Pauline said: “I liked boys, and he didn’t seem to be one of them.”

To Orval, Pauline was just one of the kids. There was no spark there. “They were all new to me when I moved in there,” he said.

Orval had grown up working on the family farm and learning all kinds of skills — carpentry, driving big machinery, even bookkeeping.

Pauline’s family lived on the hill on the west side of town and recalls all the kids sliding down that snow-covered slope in the winter and the joy of sitting around big bonfires at the end of the day.

She got a job toward the end of high school as an usher at the town’s movie theater.

“Orval’s best friend was Fred Vogel, so every time I would take somebody down the aisle and show them a seat, Fred would say, ‘Ask her now, ask her now, ask her now.’ ”

Pauline chuckles at the memory.

“Fred was ready for us to go. So I guess Orval finally decided to go with it.”

Orval and Pauline joined Fred and his girlfriend, Marge, on many adventures and “we finally decided we were having fun together and we could do that the rest of our lives,” Pauline said. “Not knowing that God gave us 70 years. It’s unreal.”

The couple got married Feb. 18, 1952, in Holy Trinity Parish Catholic Church in Nezperce and a large crowd of friends and family gathered.

“In a place like Nezperce, you know everybody and we were related to most of them,” Orval said. “It’s almost a cinch to get a pretty good crowd.”

After the ceremony and the reception, the couple headed toward Clarkston, where family friends had offered to let them spend their wedding night.

Pauline said their mothers had packed their suitcases, which they believed was a good idea because others in the wedding party were trying to play pranks on them.

But when they arrived in Clarkston and opened their suitcases, “They were full of rice and cereal. We know our mothers wouldn’t do that,” Pauline said with mock surprise.

After a good laugh Orval and Pauline dumped the rice and cereal, changed into their honeymoon clothes and headed to the Oregon Coast, where they planned to spend a few days visiting with her brother and a friend stationed at Fort Lewis.

“And then that Orval, he never could not pick up a hitchhiker,” Pauline said. “Here was a soldier hitchhiking down the road and I said, ‘Orval, don’t pick him up — we don’t know him.’ But he didn’t care; he stopped and he picked him up and I was just scared the whole time.

“But (the soldier) thanked us very much for giving him a ride. And I felt a little guilty,” she said.

The Schladers returned to Nezperce to begin building a home and a family. Besides farming, Orval did all sorts of jobs, including working with a master carpenter. They built houses, farm outbuildings, kitchen cupboards — creations that Orval said still show the mark of quality.

Pauline got pregnant with her first child, Paul, but a few months later became seriously ill. The doctors believed she was going to die and she began giving away some of her belongings to people she knew.

“I was deathly sick and they didn’t know what to do with me. And the doctors told my parents and Orval’s parents, ‘You go to the chapel and you pray. That is the only thing that is going to save this woman.’ And so they went to the chapel and prayed and I was in intensive care for a week or so.”

She eventually recovered. The couple went on to have six more children and all were in good health.

In later years after Orval and Pauline retired, they began traveling to Arizona for the winters, where they made many friends and had fun playing cards and pool and listening to music.

“It was a glorious 20 years back and forth to Arizona,” Pauline recalled. “I thought it would be a cold day in hell before I’d stay home from Arizona. But that cold day came. And we had to go because our health was not getting good and there was so much for him to drive and pull the trailer down there. And so we had to sell all that and move home about three years ago.”

The Schladers moved into a condominium next to St. Mary’s Health hospital and clinics in Cottonwood, where they are closer to their family and enjoy their time visiting with neighbors and watching ball games on TV. Pauline will celebrate her 90th birthday on March 14, and Orval will usher in his 90th on May 15.

Besides their seven children, they have 27 grandchildren and 31 great-grandchildren. The family gathered for a meal the week before their anniversary and attended Mass, where Orval and Pauline received a special blessing.

Both seem incredulous that 70 years of marriage have passed and both are entering their ninth decades of life.

“I wonder, how much longer can this go on?” Pauline said. “It’s unreal. I just get very angry because I can’t do what I used to do.”

Orval: “She hasn’t forgot how to talk, though.”

“People nowadays,” he went on, “they trade partners all the time and they never gain a thing. What’s the use of wasting your time? Just get somebody and stick with them.”

Pauline: “(It takes) a lot of glue and gum.”

Orval: “Just don’t be greedy. Be satisfied with what you’ve got.”

Pauline: “Unreal. It’s unreal.”

Orval: “Nine times out of 10 you’d get somebody else and they wouldn’t be near as good.”

Pauline: “We said for better or worse. It wasn’t worse. But it is tiring. Very tiring.”

Hedberg may be contacted at khedberg@lmtribune.com.