Marriage milestone: Snowdens celebrate 70th anniversary

By Linda Braden Albert
of The Daily Times Staff

Marrying your childhood sweetheart isn't uncommon. Staying married to him or her for 70 years, however, is another story altogether.

George and Betty Wisecarver Snowden, of Rockford, celebrated that milestone May 21 with their family. The two are older now, but the one constant in their entire married life has been the love and respect they hold for each other.

The Snowdens recently talked about their courtship, marriage and their lives together at their Rockford home.

"We went to school together," George recalled. "We met in school and went to school together for years."

That was in Greene County, Betty added, saying, "I reckon we were sweethearts in school about all the time, until I came to Rockford. I was down here two years before we were married. He stayed up there and finished schooling, then came down here and we got married. He graduated on a Thursday ..." then, as many-years-married couples do, George finished her sentence, "... on a Thursday night, came to Blount County on Friday and got married on Saturday."

Betty said, "He followed me to Rockford. I hated to leave because he was such a good-looking man, all the women wanted him. I figured I'd lost him when I had to move to Rockford with my family. I was here two years, he was up there two years, but that didn't make any difference."

Long two years

The sweethearts didn't get to see each other very often. George was occasionally able to come to Rockford, and Betty and her sister, who also had a boyfriend in Greene County, sometimes caught the bus to go there and visit. They stayed with their brother over the weekend.

"We didn't see each other very much. A day or two was all there was, wasn't it?" Betty said, looking to George for confirmation. They wrote letters to each other, keeping the Rockford Post Office busy, Betty said with a laugh.

When George came to visit, their dates were spent catching the bus to Knoxville or Maryville and going to a movie. Neither had a car so if they went anyplace, they walked. This continued after their marriage, Betty said.

The Snowdens, both now 89, married when they were 19 years old. Betty worked at Rockford Manufacturing at that time, and George was soon hired there as a night watchman. In 1940, he went to ALCOA Inc. and worked there until his retirement. They bought their first car shortly after he got this job.

The couple's family includes two sons, Lynn and Davis. For recreation, the family fished, camped and hiked. Every Sunday, they attended Stock Creek Baptist Church.

'Never fussed'

Betty said love has kept the two of them together all these years.

"I think I have loved him ever since I first saw him, when I was young," she said. "And I do still.

" Some lady in church said the other day in church that she had been married 40-some years and she and her husband had never had a fuss. Now, we've never fussed, but we've disagreed!"

When the Snowdens did disagree about something, they never went to bed angry.

"We talked to each other, and we talked it through," Betty said. "We didn't disagree very much. We never did hold a grudge."

Both Betty and George have always been hard workers, and Betty believes this also was a factor in their successful marriage.

"I was always busy," Betty said. "I worked with my hands. I stayed at home. I was not a woman that worked out, I stayed here at home. I had something in my hands working, making something, all the time. If you keep busy, you keep your mind and your hands busy, you don't get into too much trouble." The beautiful, hand-made quilts in Betty's home are a testament to her busy hands, with stitches so fine they could have been made by a sewing machine.

Working together

Betty offered some advice to young folks getting married nowadays.

"I think they should stop and think, not rush into anything," Betty said. "I think that's where a lot of their trouble comes in, they don't know what they want. And, when we got married, we didn't have anything. I think young people want too much now. When we got married, I was working and he wasn't. I believe we went to Sears and Roebuck and bought a stove and a table ... I think they have too much material things. They don't have nothing to work for."

Betty believes that is the secret of her successful marriage -- working together. The two "saved our dimes ... when we had our lots bought and paid for, we built our first house," she said. Even with Betty's quilting, George helped her by creating a design she had in mind, then making her a template to go by.

"What I couldn't do, he helped me do it," she said.

George and Betty are older now and have some health issues that keep them from doing some of the things they once enjoyed. They can't go fishing or camping anymore, but they watch ball games -- baseball is George's favorite, Lady Vols basketball is Betty's. And they still sleep in the same bed, she said.

A scrapbook full of memories was done for the couple for Christmas by their granddaughter, Beth Baker. As the Snowdens looked through the old photos, they reminisced about the life they have shared. They said they wouldn't change a thing about their years together -- it has been a good life, Betty said.

"I have enjoyed it," Betty said, smiling at her sweetheart, watching as he smiled back at her.