Commitment, dedication keys to long marriage for Sandy couple

Marriage, to Harold and Marge Kitchen of Sandy, is all about commitment, compromise and heeding good advice.

But longevity in marriage, according to Harold, requires determination.

“You can’t just say, ‘She burned the toast this morning, so I’m leaving,’ ” Harold explained. “You have to make a decision and decide to stick it out. And if you get a piece of advice from an older person, listen to it. They’ve been through it.”

The Kitchens were married Aug. 16, 1942. They’ve approached this marriage business with the same persistence as assembling the jigsaw puzzle that first connected them. They fit the pieces of their life together — including separation by a world war — into a framework of patience, religious faith and obvious genuine affection for each other. Harold and Marge may no longer be starry-eyed newlyweds, but they are proof that long-term wedded bliss does happen.

This weekend, the couple will celebrate their 70-year marital union among family and friends during a gathering in their honor at the Sandy Baptist Church.

Their anniversary is not only a milestone by today’s standards, but a living example that it is possible to achieve a harmonious affair long after the “I do’s” are said.

Harold was born in Colorado in 1922, joining three sisters and a brother. By the time he was a teenager, his father’s poor health prompted doctors to advise a lower elevation for his respiratory ailments.

So, in 1937, the family accepted the invitation of a cousin, who offered them a place to stay and employment for Harold’s father. Harold went on to graduate from Gresham High School in 1940 and became active in the youth group at the former Bethel Baptist Church in Gresham.

Marge grew up in Chester, Neb. In 1940, shortly after she finished high school, Marge’s family decided to move to Oregon to be near her sister. Their road trip to the northwest ended abruptly in Colorado, where they spent the summer working to earn enough money to finish the trip north. Marge stayed behind with relatives when the family continued its trek to Oregon. Then, in December 1940, she boarded a bus in Greeley, Colo., to join them.

“I was 18 and scared stiff,” Marge recalled. “I hadn’t been too far away from my own backyard. The bus stopped in Salt Lake City. I had $3 in my pocket and I was too scared to get off the bus. But when I woke up on the bus and saw the Columbia River Gorge and Multnomah Falls, I thought I was in heaven. It was beautiful.”

Marge’s family also became members of the Bethel Baptist Church in Gresham. She became a member of the church’s youth group, as well, and soon met a humorous and thoughtful young man who invited her to go roller skating at Oaks Park in Portland.

“She was working on a jigsaw puzzle at the pastor’s house when I first saw her,” Harold said. “I asked her to go skating and we’ve been together ever since.”

Wartime separation

After the United States entered World War II, Harold knew his days of civilian life were numbered. But unlike many of his friends, he didn’t enlist and he didn’t ask his girl to wait for him to return.

“I wanted to be married before I went to war,” he said. “(The military) hadn’t gotten me yet, but I knew they would.”

On an early summer evening in 1942, Harold took Marge for a drive in his 1928 Model A Ford. He handed her a small box of candy, got down on one knee and proposed.

“That was June 6, 1942,” Marge said. “We were married two months later.”

The military did catch up with Harold, however, and on Feb. 13, 1943, he left Gresham assigned to the 11th Airborne Division of the Army. Marge joined him on the east coast while he was in training and in May 1944, Harold shipped out for the Pacific Theater.

“We went over to New Guinea and on up to Leyte, Saipan, Luzon and Okinawa, Japan,” Harold recalled. “Our unit raised the first American flag on Japanese soil on Aug. 30, 1945. In my job, I had the same authority and function as a sack of cement. You get in, sit down and shut up. And when we landed, we jumped out and did our thing.”

Marge returned to Gresham, following Harold’s deployment, and in 1944 she took a job in the Portland Shipyards. She learned to arc weld and worked on a crew that was the last to leave the ship before it was launched and sent to the docks for finishing.

“Our ships were called Victory Ships,” she said. “There were three shifts and for many weeks, we worked seven days a week. My hourly wage was $1.25, which was a pretty good wage for that time. Our main purpose was to build ships, and build ships we did. One a week, for a while.”

Though Marge admits to making many friends in the shipyards, she was no pushover when it came to doing her job and doing it well.

“I went on strike and got fired once,” she said, laughing. “I was assigned to a crew with some shipfitters. Their job was to make the flat steel plates fit the contour of the ship. One day, they told me to weld a plate that didn’t match up. I refused to do it and was fired. I told them to go get my boss and when he saw it, he told the shipfitters to fix it so I could make the weld. I told them the reason I wouldn’t do it is because it wouldn’t be a safe job and the ship might come apart. And my husband might come home on this ship.”

Meanwhile, in the Pacific, Harold became a cryptologist for the Army, decoding incoming messages for his superiors. He referred to two dispatches as “significant” — one, informing the unit of the detonation of the first atomic bomb at Hiroshima, Japan, in August 1945; and the other, “a hint” of Japan’s possible surrender.

But while stationed in the Philippines, Harold witnessed a sign that the war would soon be over.

“We saw a white ‘Betty’ (Japanese fighter) fly overhead,” he said. “All the search lights were trained on the plane, but no shots were fired. We knew it was the Japanese on their way to meet MacArthur in Manila. We had no idea what they were saying, but we knew it was significant.”

A holiday homecoming

Harold boarded a ship in Yokohama, Japan, on Dec. 5, 1945, headed home. After a stormy North Pacific crossing, he arrived in Tacoma, Wash., on Dec. 22, where he was officially discharged from the military.

“I got home Dec. 24, 1945,” he said. “What a homecoming. That was a pretty good Christmas present.”

A couple months later, Harold and Marge were exchanging stories about their war experiences both at home and abroad. Harold learned Marge had spent a lot of time working over a bad weld on the rudder attachment for the USS Drew.

“I don’t remember how it came up, but I mentioned the Drew,” Harold said. “And she said, ‘I worked on that ship.’ That was the ship I came home on.”

The Kitchens purchased 17 acres in Sandy in 1946. Harold took a job at a local saw mill, while Marge got down to raising their two daughters and later, two sons. In 1949, Harold went to work for Portland General Electric, where he operated the former Bull Run Power Plant.

He retired in 1986 after nearly 40 years with the company. Both became active in the community — Harold, as a member of the school board for both Bull Run Grade School and Sandy High School, and Marge as a longtime member of the local election board.

In 1963, they moved a mile down the road, “to be closer to town,” where they continue to putter with their garden and its surrounding 27 acres.

But in the garage, spit polished and nearly brand new looking, rests that 1928 Model A Ford. Harold still takes the car out on occasion but never without remembering that summer drive 70 years ago.

“I’d marry her again,” he said. “We’ve had a good life together.”