Published: June 02, 2007 12:33 pm            

Together Forever

LeRoy and Mabel Griepentreg reflect on the trials and triumphs in their 66 years of marriage

San Marcos — Removing the clear nasal oxygen tube from his face, LeRoy Griepentreg stabilizes himself with one hand and leans as far over in his wheelchair as he can reach, planting a kiss on his wife’s cheek. Mabel cracks a quick smile. The two clasp hands, their wheelchairs situated side by side in front of a window draped with thick curtains inside their cozy Redwood Springs apartment.

They’ve made their room, just across the hall from the central nurses station, as much like their old Nebraska home as possible. Adjacent to the bed there’s a portrait of their three children: Marv, Marilyn and Marlene. On a wall above their dining table, they have hung two crosses, a framed artistic rendering of Jesus and a stitched copy of the words from 1 Thessalonians 5:18. A denim-covered prayer book sits on a night stand near the TV and underneath it, a Bible. Faith has always been a center point in the couple’s lives. It’s taken them this far.

On Friday, LeRoy and Mable celebrated their 66th wedding anniversary. Their life together isn’t a tale of fleeting romance or even fairy tale endings. It hasn’t always been that easy. The Griepentregs — from the farms of Nebraska to the retirement home where the two hospice patients plan to live out their days — are a symbol of the power of stability.

“We just kept the love coming,” LeRoy, 85, said. “We’ve done everything together. That’s why we stayed together for so long. We always got along that way.”

Mabel, 84, has suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease for more than seven years. She speaks only briefly, answers questions with “yes” or “no” and nods her head from time to time. LeRoy continued to care for her from their home in Columbus, Neb. until he was diagnosed with lung cancer several months ago.

Last October, son Marv decided to move the two to San Marcos so he could keep better watch over them. He says the timing couldn’t have been better.

“He knows he can’t take care of mom anymore, he knows he can’t take care of himself, but he knows that we are going to take care of him,” Marv said. “When he had this diagnosis with lung cancer, and it gave him a time frame, he knows that he’s not going to live forever. We all change our lives when we find that out. You and I don’t know when we are going to die, but we know we’re going to. But when you find when that time frame is, you think of different things and act accordingly. So he’s pretty peaceful about everything.”



The Special Neighbor

LeRoy first ran into Mabel in 1937. He was visiting an aunt and uncle near Omaha, and they decided to throw a neighborhood party. Mabel and her folks — who lived next door to LeRoy’s relatives — came to the picnic and the minute LeRoy met her, he says he knew she was special.

“It was just like we were made for each other,” LeRoy said. “I knew right then, that had to be it.”

After the visit, he never forgot her, saying he couldn’t get her out of his mind. They kept in touch, and by the time he was 18 and she was 17, the two went on their first date. LeRoy has trouble remembering exactly what they did, but it went well because several more dates followed.

“We did a lot of dancing, ballroom dancing,” LeRoy said. “We liked to go fishing, too. We fished in South Dakota and Minnesota and all different places.”

LeRoy and Mabel were married at the Lutheran Church in Columbus on June 1, 1941. The date has considerable meaning: His parents, his grandparents, his older brother and even his son were all married on June 1.

The newlyweds moved to Madison, Neb. where he went to work as a mechanic for the Ford Company while Mabel stayed home.

LeRoy describes himself as a jack-of-all-trades: In over 40 years of work, he did everything from auto work to carpentry to machinery to corn shelling. He was handy, quick at picking things up just by watching others do things.

“I was very talented. The Lord’s been very good to me,” LeRoy said.



Together in Tragedy

Still in Madison, LeRoy remained a mechanic and the couple soon had three children. With the shadow of the depression still looming over them, money was tight and times were hard.

To provide extra income, LeRoy took up custom corn shelling as a second job. At sale-time, LeRoy and his crew would come out to the farm, open the corn crib where the corn was stored, shell the ear corn, and take it to a corn sheller tractor. The corncobs left from shelling were used as fuel for the kitchen stove and as livestock bedding.

One afternoon in 1945, he was filling up a tire on his corn sheller when the tire exploded, hitting him right in the face and gashing open his forehead.

LeRoy was rushed to the hospital.

“The doctor looked at it and said ‘you’ll never make it,’” LeRoy said.

But he did. And even when a year later, LeRoy started passing out due to the scar tissue pressing against his brain, he pulled through again, having a metal plate inserted into his head.

Marv says that through all the tragedy, Mabel and LeRoy became even closer.

“It brought them closer because everybody thought he wasn’t going to make it. It made us all feel like he got a reprieve here, and his life was going to go on, we didn’t lose him and we were thankful for that... Mom did all right. She just took care of us kids and waited for him to come back,” Marv said.

LeRoy describes it as the “miracle of his life.”

“It was absolutely a miracle that Mable and me got to see each other again,” he said.

The love just kept on coming.



Together in Faith

By the time Marv was in eighth grade, the family moved to Columbus where a new house was built for the family. The carpenter who built their home hired LeRoy as a carpenter on the spot.

“He said ‘I’ll teach you how to do the carpentry work and help you build your own house,’” LeRoy said. “I even worked for him for several years.”

LeRoy worked long hours and everyone seemed to stay busy, but there was one day that was truly set aside for the family — Sunday.

Church wasn’t at all optional for the Griepentreg children. That’s the way it had been for Mabel and LeRoy growing up, and they intended to carry that tradition along to their own children.

“We went to church on Sunday, that’s just the way it was,” LeRoy said.

The kids attended a local Lutheran school and each evening the Griepentregs would gather for a family devotional. They read from a Portals of Prayer book from the Lutheran Church and followed with a prayer at the end. The family never missed a devotional.

“It was just a time when we’d forget about everything that was in the world, and remembered that we had to look towards God to take care of our problems,” Marv said. “It really drew us all closer together.”

But life still wasn’t easy for the family. LeRoy worked other odd jobs to make ends meet. Mabel and the kids all worked together at home in the garden and in the home, each having their own specific duties. LeRoy pridefully mentions that no one ever went hungry.

“It was hectic in those years because we didn’t have a lot of money,” Marv said. “Mom took care of the house and the garden, and dad took care of his job, whatever it may be from one job to another. There wasn’t a lot of affection with all of us, we just all knew that we were loved, and we all took part in what we had to do to make everything happen with the family. We wore patched clothes, we didn’t have any designer jeans. It was just living from paycheck to paycheck.”



The Special Bond

Mabel and LeRoy stayed in their Columbus home until 1995, long after the kids had moved on to other places — Marilyn and Marlene to North Carolina and Marv to San Marcos. From there, they moved into an apartment for 10 years until Marv brought them here.

Today, he visits his parents daily to gather their mail, check his father’s oxygen humidifier and get whatever they need at the local grocery store.

“I know he doesn’t have much going on there. Not much to keep him entertained. Just the TV and the normal happenings at the center,” Marv said. “He calls me every morning after breakfast at work and lets me know what he had for breakfast, and how his night was, that he slept all right, and Mom’s OK.”

Every Sunday, Marv and his wife Dianne spend two or three hours with the couple. They all play a game called Greedy with a set of dice. Along with a little entertainment, the game acts as a barometer for Marv to see how his mom is doing.

“I would be able to tell if Mom’s starting to lose it, because I’d know if she can’t play any longer. But she’s doing good at it yet, so that’s a way of telling how she’s holding in there with the Alzheimer’s.”

And the bond that she has with her husband doesn’t necessarily need words.

Inside their room, on the eve of their 66th wedding anniversary, LeRoy describes a few of his favorite things about his wife.

“I just knew she loved me, the love was always shown. If it wouldn’t have been for that, we wouldn’t have been together for so long.”

LeRoy falls silent for a second or two and then moves on to another topic. In mid-sentence, her hand drifts beneath the arm rest of her wheelchair, over to his. She squeezes his hand tightly. Mabel looks over at LeRoy and cracks a quick smile.

The love just keeps on coming.

        

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