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POSTED: Saturday, Feb. 14, 2009

Bellingham couple's secret to 73 years of marriage? Kissing each other good night

BELLINGHAM - If you want to make your marriage last and last and last, then pucker up before you go to bed.

That's the secret to Clarence and Violet Kenoyer's 73 years of marriage.

The couple wed on Feb. 8, 1936. He was 20. She was 19.

Nowadays, he's 93 and she's 92.

The world has changed around them since that long-ago wedding day, but one thing has stayed constant.

"I don't think we ever went to bed without kissing goodnight," Clarence said.

Other explanations for the longevity of their union?

"We don't fight very often," Violet said.

"Love and affection. We have arguments, but it never carries overnight," Clarence said.

They met while Clarence Kenoyer was attending to Whatcom High School and Violet Urbeck was at Fairhaven High School.

"She thought I was stuck up and I thought she was stuck up," he said with a laugh.

But that idea changed after they went out on a date.

"I thought she was a pretty good chick after that night. And I liked her," Clarence said.

For her part, Violet can't remember what attracted her to Clarence.

They went steady for four years, then married in 1936 in the midst of the Great Depression.

There was no big wedding party for the couple. There was no wedding dress for Violet. They couldn't afford it.

But there was a night on the town with the four witnesses who came to see them be married by a justice of the peace.

Later that night, there was a snowstorm and a fierce Nor'easter.

"(It) blew like mad. It blew for three days," he said.

The couple woke up the next day to find water all over their kitchen floor because the frozen pipes had burst.

As for their honeymoon, there was no money. That would come years later in California, when their children, Derald and Barbara, were still youngsters.

They settled into married life in their apartment on B Street, for which they paid $22 a month in rent. They paid $20 a month for their car. He earned $74 a month at his job at what was then Pacific Coast Paper Mills, the forerunner of Georgia-Pacific, Clarence said.

Money was tight. Splurges were rare.

"One day she says, 'Clarence, what would you say if I have $5 we could spend?'

"We went out on the town for $5," Clarence said, remembering that treat still after all the years.

They moved to their house on Victor Street in 1939. They paid $2,500 for it. They live in it still.

Over the years, they have raised their two children. Clarence would eventually leave the mill and work in other jobs until landing one as a driver for Overall Laundry Services, where he worked for 30 years before retiring in 1981.

Together, they have endured cancer and assorted health problems, including Violet's open-heart surgery and stroke.

The four witnesses at their wedding have since died. But there are now grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

And if their life hasn't been filled with excitement, as they like to say, it has been filled with affection that has lasted more than three quarters of a century.