“I hope I die first, because I’d have trouble getting along without her. It’s just, I depend on her for all…she raised the kids because I was working and everything. She’s the center of my life. I probably wouldn’t live long if she died,” Lincoln Dearth says of his wife. Born three weeks apart and just around the corner from each other, Lincoln and Mary Lou Dearth may truly have been meant to fall in love. “God was with us,” Lincoln explains, “That’s the way it is.” The pair grew up in rural southeastern Ohio, attending McArthur High School in the late 1940s where Lincoln was officially a “Future Farmer” and Mary Lou, a “Future Homemaker.”
They grew up and remain in Vinton County, the least populous county in Ohio according to the Census Bureau. Their house, now over half a century old, sits just outside of McArthur, a small Appalachian village indicative of the area with its forests, tight-knit community and predominantly Caucasian population.
After nearly sixty years of marriage, the couple is one of a disappearing breed. According to the Census Bureau, “in recent history, the marriage rate among Americans was at its highest in the 1950s, when the institution defined gender roles, family life and a person’s place in society.” Since that pivotal decade, the percentage of American households occupied by married couples has dropped approximately 30 percent. Not only has divorce been a national crisis over the past six decades, but as couples approach old age, they run the risk of losing their partners. “So many of them have lost their mates,” Mary Lou says of their friends, “so far, we’ve been very lucky.”
Lincoln was drafted into the Army during the Korean War, and although he was originally ordered to go to Korea, he was rerouted to Germany where he spent the year before their wedding. “It was very rewarding in a way. It taught me to be independent, taught me to wait on myself, and it was just a good thing—if you don’t get killed, you know.” In 1954, they were married on Valentine’s Day by their former pastor in Columbus, Ohio. They spent a chilly honeymoon in Niagara Falls, New York and Pennsylvania. “We had a good time, in February no less,” Lincoln laughs. He calls their early years of marriage “tremendous,” adding, “They’ve all been that way.”
One of their lowest points came with the unexpected death of their second child, whom they lost in childbirth. “There was no ultrasounds; there was nothing like they have today, so we did not have any suspicion of anything like that. It was a very hard pill to swallow,” Mary Lou recounts painfully. “It was a girl; we never got to see it,” Lincoln says.
Contracting polio at five years old, Mary Lou has persevered through many sicknesses and surgeries. Lincoln lists at least five operations from memory, adding, “I’ve never had any of that stuff, so she’s pretty tough.” While she recovered from polio after several months of treatment, even today she still has “touches of it.” The pain, at first hard to describe, she says is “just like a knife…[it] cuts the slices right up through my leg.” When it strikes her at night, she often rouses Lincoln and they walk through the house until the pain is gone. “Since she’s gotten to where she don’t get around good anymore, I make the beds, I run the sweeper, I help her with whatever she needs. That’s the way it is,” Lincoln says. “Before she didn’t have to do all that, but you know it’s…old age.” Mary Lou recalls a time after a back surgery when Lincoln took complete care of her. “He did all the cooking for two weeks; I had to stay in bed, I was not allowed to be up…he took awful good care of me then,” she says, “and he’d never cooked before in his life.”
Regardless of such ailments and the effects of age, Mary Lou and Lincoln remain very active and young at heart. It is difficult to get out as much in the winter, but Lincoln still does his best to get his exercise during the colder months. “I try to walk the dogs everyday for a mile,” he says of their two collies, Benjy and Duke, “I can’t sit still, I’ve got to be doing something, you know.”
With four children, five grandkids and one newborn great-grandchild, Lincoln and Mary Lou have a lot on their plate. “[We’ve just] got so many things going on,” Lincoln says, “We’ve got enough money to live on, we’re not rich, but we can live. Don’t owe anybody any money, but... I don’t know anything we really struggle with.”
Growing up in the Dearth household “was probably what you would say is the typical Midwestern American family,” according to their eldest daughter, Debbie. “They were a unified front when it came to their kids.” She learned a lot from her parents. “I think that you learn that marriage is for life. You chose carefully. I’ve been married 32 years, so I think I learned that lesson well,” Debbie says. “There’s good and there’s bad. Sometimes there’s good times, but you’re in it for life.”
At the end of the day, their lifestyle is rather simple. They do what they must to keep their property up: 135 acres of farmland on either side of U.S. Highway 50 and another 75 acres out in the country. Early in their marriage, after living with Lincoln’s parents for a few years, they found themselves working toward their future home. “We’d been looking for a place to buy…and her dad said, ‘I’ll build you one.’ So that’s what happened. We got together and he built our house, and we moved in, in 1958 and been here ever since,” Lincoln explains, full of gratitude. Without the help of his aunts and her father, they never would have been able to afford or build the home. “We never had a mortgage,” he continued, “We had $500 notes, and whenever we got $500 we paid them off. It’s been pretty good.”
The land has been more than useful to them over the years. When they were younger, Lincoln worked on the farm while Mary Lou worked at the local drugstore. Although Lincoln eventually went on to work at the post office for almost forty years, he still helps his son, Bruce, maintain the farm today. “In the summertime, I do a lot of farming. We cut and bale hay and we mow everything, keep everything trimmed up,” Lincoln says. A handmade sign stands by their barn, inviting customers to purchase hay nearly year-round. Bruce, their youngest child, retired at 50 years old after working for the highway for 33 years. He lives with his parents on the property. “I couldn’t do it if it wasn’t for him,” Lincoln says.
It is difficult to imagine a life alone, but loss is inevitable and the thought is hard to bear. “It’d be awfully hard, but…I guess I’d make it. Some way, with God’s help maybe,” Mary Lou says. “We’ve always been together; I just can’t see that happening. But it will, I know. There’ll be some way.” In Lincoln’s opinion, she would have an easier time coping than he would. “I’ve looked over the years, and widow women adjust better than men do. In our church, we’ve got one or two men, but the women just adjust better.” Their daughter Debbie knows how important they are to each other. “I firmly believe that when one of them dies, the other one will go within six months. My husband’s a funeral director and they’ve buried—I think they counted up—six married couples in the last year. I may be wrong, but that’s what I think.”
As a couple, they undoubtedly complement each other. “I think that they played off each other’s strengths,” Debbie says. “They treat each other the same way today as they did back then—always respectful, always loving. I think it’s the same today.”
“We’re the old school,” Lincoln affirms, “neither one of us drink, neither one of us smoke, neither one of us ever run around on each other. It’s just one of those things…that’s just the way we feel.” Mary Lou finds enjoyment in a less common compulsion: “usually when I go get my groceries, I always get myself a bouquet of flowers, because… I love flowers! So I do that for myself,” she says.
“I think it’s God’s will, I always thought that,” Lincoln says of their time together, “I think we were supposed to be married. It’s just the way it’s worked out.” “It’s been a very good life,” Mary Lou says. “All the grandsons and granddaughters are growing up and getting a life of their own. We just hope for the best,” she says tearfully, “I just hope they’re as happy as their grandma was.”
