Gayle M Irwin

Their love story is like a romance novel. The year was 1960 and the setting a small town in Iowa. The two met in April on a blind date set up by mutual friends. That date turned into several more. By June 1st, the two were engaged, and on June 17th, they married. She was 21 and he was 24. A short honeymoon to New Orleans and a visit with his parents and younger siblings in Louisiana and then back to Iowa. They lived in town first and 10 years later moved to a small farm. Seven years after that, they packed up their teenager and the family dog, and, like pioneers of the 1800s, the family trekked west.

The first two years they lived in Wyoming, working and making new friends. However, the windy conditions and inability to grow a garden in the sandy soil filled with cactus and sagebrush took them north to Montana. They spent the next 42 years in The Big Sky State, enjoying every moment of living in the mountains and woods, and later in life, in a tiny town of Central Montana, where the artist Charlie Russell once resided, still surrounded by snow-capped mountains and forested hills.

Of course they had their ups and downs, challenges and joys, struggles and good times, but overall, they would say their lives have been good and good together. On June 17th of this year, they will celebrate 65 years of marriage.

The couple of whom I speak is my parents. My mother, Marcia, turns 86 on February 16, and my father, Earl, will be 89 in July. Theirs is a love story I hope to write one day because they experienced a unique life, especially in Montana. They "lived off the land" for the first 12 years in that state, owning acreage with no running water, indoor plumbing, or electricity or natural gas for heat. They went back to their farmer roots, my mother growing up on a dairy and crop farm in Iowa and my dad raised on a dairy farm in Louisiana. Neither family had electricity or indoor plumbing until my parents were in their late teens, and they learned the way of homesteaders at a young age. 

They returned to that lifestyle during their mid-40s to late 50's, raising gardens, having some small animals, and going hunting for food sources. My mom learned about mushrooms and other "wild edible plants" and implemented those into her cooking, and she canned produce and meat for winter use. She cooked and baked on a wood cookstove and they had another wood heater for additional warmth in their 900 square foot cabin. They lived in a tiny home before tiny homes were "a thing."

My dad had a horse that he rode around the property and on the nearby Forest Service land. He hauled wood and water with that beautiful mare, and Mom raised chickens as well as a vegetable garden. She picked wild strawberries and an apple tree grew on some nearby land that she was able to harvest in the fall -- if the black bears didn't get there first!

Yes, their's is a love story worth sharing ... and remembering.

Now both live in a small apartment 25 miles from me, and I spend two to three days with them each week. I take them grocery shopping. We share meals together, either at my house or their apartment. We take day-trips, and even overnighters, together. We frequently spend holidays together -- 25 miles miles is easier to navigate, even in winter, than 500 miles (the distance one-way it was between us for more than 20 years). I'm glad they are closer and that I get to see them more often.

I look forward to crafting a book in their honor one day for I do love their love story!