{"id":145,"date":"2009-09-21T18:33:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-21T18:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/how-do-you-make-a-marriage-last-70-years.html"},"modified":"2009-09-21T18:33:00","modified_gmt":"2009-09-21T18:33:00","slug":"how-do-you-make-a-marriage-last-70-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/how-do-you-make-a-marriage-last-70-years.html","title":{"rendered":"How do you make a marriage last 70 years?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meet one couple with some answers<\/a>: <\/p>\n

It was at a barn dance near the small community of Munjor, Kansas in the middle of the Great Depression when Marcellus Ruder asked 17-year-old Marcella Rohr to dance with him. Little did either realize that moment would change the course of their lives forever. In October, they will be married 70 years and will celebrate with their four children, seven grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren, as well as many family and friends.<\/p>\n

However, on Saturday they started the festivities early at the second of two Jubilee Celebrations of Marriage in the diocese. The Mass at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church was celebrated by Bishop Paul Coakley, with Father Kevin Weber and Father Joshua Werth concelebrating and Deacon Tom Koerner assisting.<\/p>\n

Two weeks early, the bishop celebrated a similar Mass at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Salina.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Bishop Coakley acknowledged in his homily that each couple has learned a lot in this \u201cjourney of love.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is likely that all of you held a secret in your hearts the day you married \u2014 the secret that your marriage would be different, that all times would be for good, for better and for richer. In order for love to be deepened, it is precisely in these difficult times that we need to recommit ourselves to one another. It is in these times that we discover the real meaning of love. Love is a decision, not a feeling,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

From the start of their marriage in 1939, the Ruders can tell you story after story about difficult times \u2014 and good times as well.<\/p>\n

Because of the economic times, the couple began their marriage living with Marcellus\u2019 parents. There also was another married sibling living at home, as well as seven younger Ruder children.<\/p>\n

Marcella\u2019s mother died when she was 11, and her father depended on her and her sister to care for the younger ones. After Marcella married, she went to town two days a week to help care for her siblings and her father\u2019s household.<\/p>\n

Marcellus and Marcella later moved to Hays and Plainville, then to Wyoming, Texas and back to Hays \u2014 wherever Marcellus\u2019 job with an oil company took him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe lived in Wyoming for nine months, and that was one hellacious winter,\u201d Marcellus said. \u201cI asked for a transfer, and that\u2019s when we moved to Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through all the moves and the raising of their children, the Ruders continued to give of themselves. If it was a new school that needed to be built, Marcellus came home from work, skipped supper and helped to build the school until late into the night. If he could help to do anything for the church or its school, he did. In addition, each summer he took vacation to return home to help with the harvest on the family farm.<\/p>\n

Marcella worked as a nurse\u2019s aide in the hospital and in the community and church whenever she could.<\/p>\n

\u201cWherever we moved, my mother introduced herself and made friends,\u201d Ann Ruder, the couple\u2019s daughter, said.<\/p>\n

Practicing their Catholic faith and handing it down to their children was an important element in their married life.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time there was a church service of any kind, the Ruder family was there,\u201d Ann Ruder said. \u201cWe prayed the Rosary every night, often kneeling on a hard, wooden floor.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You’ll find more at the CNA link<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meet one couple with some answers: It was at a barn dance near the small community of Munjor, Kansas in the middle of the Great Depression when Marcellus Ruder asked 17-year-old Marcella Rohr to dance with him. Little did either realize that moment would change the course of their lives forever. In October, they will…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-people-in-the-pews"],"yoast_head":"\nHow do you make a marriage last 70 years? - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/how-do-you-make-a-marriage-last-70-years.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How do you make a marriage last 70 years? - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Meet one couple with some answers: It was at a barn dance near the small community of Munjor, Kansas in the middle of the Great Depression when Marcellus Ruder asked 17-year-old Marcella Rohr to dance with him. Little did either realize that moment would change the course of their lives forever. In October, they will…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/how-do-you-make-a-marriage-last-70-years.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-09-21T18:33:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"deacon greg kandra\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How do you make a marriage last 70 years? - The Deacon's Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/how-do-you-make-a-marriage-last-70-years.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"How do you make a marriage last 70 years? - The Deacon's Bench","og_description":"Meet one couple with some answers: It was at a barn dance near the small community of Munjor, Kansas in the middle of the Great Depression when Marcellus Ruder asked 17-year-old Marcella Rohr to dance with him. Little did either realize that moment would change the course of their lives forever. In October, they will…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/how-do-you-make-a-marriage-last-70-years.html","og_site_name":"The Deacon's Bench","article_published_time":"2009-09-21T18:33:00+00:00","author":"deacon greg kandra","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/how-do-you-make-a-marriage-last-70-years.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/how-do-you-make-a-marriage-last-70-years.html","name":"How do you make a marriage last 70 years? - The Deacon's Bench","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-09-21T18:33:00+00:00","dateModified":"2009-09-21T18:33:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/052b8cd86cc713feaccdc8282b03cf10"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/how-do-you-make-a-marriage-last-70-years.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/how-do-you-make-a-marriage-last-70-years.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/how-do-you-make-a-marriage-last-70-years.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"How do you make a marriage last 70 years?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/","name":"The Deacon's Bench","description":"Where a Roman Catholic Deacon Ponders the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/052b8cd86cc713feaccdc8282b03cf10","name":"deacon greg kandra","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a4e\/a4e07ce6fde3f10d4d9753243fd48d45x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a4e\/a4e07ce6fde3f10d4d9753243fd48d45x96.jpg","caption":"deacon greg kandra"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/deacon-greg-kandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/365"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}