LOGANSPORT — The first time Lonnie ever really talked to Nellie was when he offered her a ride in his daddy’s car.

The two seemed to hit it off on the drive around Rockfield, so he invited her to a show that night. It was the first date of many.

In time, the 19-year-old started thinking about asking his 16-year-old girlfriend to be his wife.

“I had thought about it a lot, but we hadn’t openly discussed it," Lonnie recalled.

But the subject finally came up. The pair decided on a Sunday night they would be married. On Monday morning, Nellie took a break from baby-sitting, they tracked down a preacher in Logansport, and they made it official.

That was 74 years ago today. And while Lonnie and Nellie Powell didn’t even realize at first that they had wed on Valentine’s Day, they and their family agree that theirs is a classic love story.

“They’ve had a lot of great years together,” said Joyce, one of the couple’s six children. “Everybody should be so lucky.”

First meeting

Lonnie and Nellie first met at school in Rockfield.

Being three years older, Lonnie was ahead of Nellie in school, but their two classes shared a single classroom. He spied her from across the room, but that was all the further it went.

“At school, we did not communicate,” Lonnie said. “She was on one side, and I was on the other side.”

But then he got his hands on his dad’s car. Lonnie headed from his country home a couple miles from Burrows to Rockfield, where he came across three girls.

One of them was Nellie.

He asked her if she wanted to take a ride. More than 75 years later, Lonnie still laughs as he explains why he picked her.

“She had her eyebrows tweezed, and the other two girls did not “ he said, so Lonnie assumed Nellie was older than the other girls.

Pretty blue eyes

The two saw each other at least once a week over the next year and a half, even though Nellie’s family didn’t think much of Lonnie.

See, he was born in Kentucky and didn’t move to Indiana until he was 10. Plus, he was from the country.

“They thought he was a hillbilly,” Joyce said.

But Nellie saw something else. And she really loved his eyes.

“She always said he had pretty blue eyes,” said Joyce.

The pair eventually decided to get married. Nellie worked as a baby sitter during the week, so she got some neighbors to watch the kids, and Lonnie asked around until he found a preacher in Logansport to perform the service.

The Rev. Frances Reese married them Feb. 14, 1938.

“I did not plan on that day,” Lonnie said. “I just took advantage of the opportunity.”

And after the ceremony, Nellie went back to her baby-sitting job.

Lonnie laughed when he recalled filling out the official paperwork.

“I had to stretch her age to get the marriage license,” he said.

Unhappy parents

Lonnie’s family was OK with the marriage. His parents approved as long as he could support himself.

Nellie’s family had a different response. Her dad forbade her from seeing Lonnie, and it was only after a week of Nellie crying and not eating that he relented.

Nellie and Lonnie stayed briefly with one of Lonnie’s sisters before getting their own place when Lonnie started working for a farmer. Their first home had three rooms, and rent was $5 a month. When they told the landlord they wanted the adjacent garden, the price climbed to $6.

Now, Lonnie is 93, and Nellie is 90. Both have Alzheimer’s disease, their children say. So some of the details of their life together may be a little fuzzy, but the high points are still crystal clear.

The early years were tough, with money hard to find and a growing number of mouths to feed. The couple had four boys and two girls.

Lonnie farmed for a while, then enlisted in the service in 1942 or 1943. He served through 1947, including an overseas deployment.

Nellie made the first big trip of her life when she rode a bus to see Lonnie while he was still stateside. She had not been pleased when Lonnie volunteered to serve.

“She was very unhappy,” he recalled.

Nellie was a homemaker, often earning extra money by doing laundry and sewing.

Years pass quickly

After the military, Lonnie ran a milk route before joining the railroad.

He worked first as a fireman, then as an engineer. He retired after 33 years of service, maybe in 1981.

There were a lot of rough patches over the years, Lonnie said, but the couple worked through each one. He advised anyone looking to get married to find someone “you can talk to and go through rough times with.”

They could never have imagined being together this long, Lonnie said.

“It’s a lot of years, and they go by fast,” said Nellie, who started hospice care last week.

But there have been plenty of good times.

The kids remember Nellie playing the piano and the couple singing together often.

The memory prompted Lonnie to start singing “an old song” named “Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than You Think).”

“Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think,” Lonnie sang softly.

“Enjoy yourself, while you're still in the pink

“The years go by, as quickly as you wink

“Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think.”

• Dustin Kass is associate editor of the Pharos-Tribune. He can be reached at 574-732-5155 or dustin.kass@pharostribune.com.