Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - Couples mark decades of commitment

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Tuesday, February 15, 2000

Couples mark decades of commitment
250 couples celebrate 50 or more years together at Old Country Buffet
By Stephanie L. Jordan
Caller-Times

George Gongora/Caller-Times

Roland and Lily Sproule (from left) and Allen and Margarete Pyle, with marriage liscense in hand, wait to show the cashier proof that they have been married for 50 years or more. Old Country Buffet sponsors free Valentine's Day meals for such couples every year.

Art Mullen can easily remember the first time he saw his wife, Dorothy - he was at a square dance in a small town west of St. Louis, sitting on the sidelines reading comic books.
   Dorothy Mullen's memory of Art is just as sharp: "Those eyes. Those blue, blue eyes."
   They're not so sure how they were drawn to each other, though they had some things in common. Both were from small towns. Both were very shy.
   The day after they met, Art Mullen shipped off with the Navy during World War II.
   Dorothy wrote him every day for two years. When he got home, they married.
   That was 51 years ago.
   "Now I have five children," Dorothy Mullen said. "And they all have his eyes."

George Gongora/Caller-Times

Couples married for more than 50 years, including Gladys and Eugene House, enjoyed the free buffet for their Valentine's Day lunch.

   The Mullens joined more than 250 other couples, all of whom have been married for at least 50 years, for a free meal at Old Country Buffet, 4938 S. Staples St.
   The event honored the couples in the name of Valentine's Day, a practice the company does nationwide each year, said Carlos Garcia, general manager. The restaurant expected about 200 couples for the day, but by the end of lunch, 250 couples had attended the event.
   Many of the couples know why they've been successful where others have failed.
   They've been patient, cooperative, caring and have worked at it, some said.
   "And my husband just never has gotten really mad at me," said Mary Lambert, who has been married to Martin Lambert for 64 years. "When I first saw him, I loved him. He was skinny, but very nice."
   And Martin Lambert is glad he broke up with another woman to date Mary.
   "I don't think I could have found somebody like her who would put up with me as long as she has," he said.

George Gongora/Caller-Times

Marie and Bill Carter show off their marriage license. It was their ticket to a free lunch at Old Country Buffet on Valentine's Day.

   Sitting in the restaurant filled with balloons and laughter, many couples tried to remember what it was that attracted one to the other.
   "She was just so easy to talk to," said C.B. Landis of his wife of almost 53 years.
   He had met Edna as she walked home from a dance with his cousin on Christmas Day 1946. He drove the two women home in his 1941 Ford, and didn't see his cousin again for months. But he didn't forget the blue-eyed Edna even though he didn't know how to reach her. He finally tracked her down through his cousin. They dated for four days. And then he proposed.
   "I don't know why he says I was easy to talk to when I was always considered to be an oddball," Edna Landis said. "But for me, well, it's like they say 'I was swept off my feet.' "
   And for the Landises, being married meant Edna staying by her husband through triple bypass surgery, and C.B. sticking with Edna through her bout with cancer.
   "When I married her I made a promise," Landis said. "When you make a commitment, that has to mean something. And for me, it was that I was going to stick by it."



Staff writer Stephanie L. Jordan can be reached at 886-3724 or by e-mail_at jordans@caller.com

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