After 70 years of wedded bliss, this couple has lessons to share
Rose Bain’s ability to communicate varies from day to day. Movement difficulties and tremors affect her, too. At age 90, she’s 14 years into a battle with Parkinson’s disease, but faces none of it alone.
Behind and beside her is her husband, Sam Bain. He just turned 95, and they celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary in late October.
Like much of their relationship, the day wasn’t marked by a glitzy party or unrealistic expectations. They only wished for time together, with each other and their family, which includes four surviving children and six grandchildren.
Those people exist because of Sam and Rose’s relationship, but who they’ve become is even more emblematic of a 70-plus-year love story about two people who never stopped choosing each other.
Trying
Sam and Rose met at their Gary, Ind., high school. Sam did a tour in the Navy that ended in 1950, while Rose worked for Bell Telephone Co.
Their paths crossed again while Sam went to college. They’d see each other at Sunday Serbian picnics, “private clubs” which skirted the bygone Indiana law prohibiting alcohol service at public establishments on Sundays. Rose was seeing someone else, but Sam remained present, friendly and kind. By October 1952, Rose was Mrs. Bain. And by 1955, they were mom and dad.
“We lived a family life,” Sam said. “Everything we did was always as a family.” And sometimes, families have disagreements.
Sam and Rose were married in a Serbian Orthodox Church, as was Sam’s upbringing. But he could see how unhappy she was being separated from the Catholic Church from her childhood.
Because Rose felt more connected to her church than he did to his, and with the blessing of his father, Sam converted to Catholicism. It was the first conflict of their married life, and it set the tone for the rest.
“We had our little spats, but
nothing of any serious consequence,” he said. “I don’t care what the spat was, but I yielded to whatever would make it disappear,” because none of it was important enough to be at odds with his bride.
Sam says he and his wife weren’t intentionally setting an example for their eventual brood of five, but it happened nonetheless.
“When I become frustrated or irritated with my wife, I take a step back and think about my parents,” said their youngest child, also named Sam. “I try to take the high road and be grateful as a means of getting over the situation and coming back around to my spouse.
“They made me thoroughly understand that marriage is for the long term, and letting short-term situations create distance between us is short-sighted.”
Together
The Bain patriarch will tell you with pride that he was never a golfer or fisherman. After long days as a manager at U.S. Steel — where he worked for his entire career — he came home and reveled in his roles as husband to Rose and father to Mark, Keith, Jeff, Terese and Sam.
When young Sam made his first communion, so did his father, furthering his relationship with the church andcementing a social circle.
“We weren’t the type of family who dropped our kids off somewhere and said, ‘See you at 7,’” their father said.
When the boys played church league baseball, their dad volunteered as an umpire or assistant manager. When Rose was president of the church’s lady’s guild, her husband and kids came whenever appropriate.
That involvement sometimes caused friction with their children as they grew, but in hindsight, it was an asset.
“They fed, nourished, protected, mentored, taught, coached, disciplined and loved each one of us even after wrecking all of their cars, using all of their money, taking up all of their time and exhausting almost all of their patience,” their son, Keith, said. “Looking back, I don’t know how they pulled it off.”
“My parents gave me enough freedom to be independent and self-reliant, but always had their eye on me to make sure I was cared for, involved and doing well in school and staying out of trouble,” Sam said.
“I am who I am today because of them,” noting his adventurous streak.
Sam and Rose took their family on vacations to South America, Alaska and Europe, but when at home, the closest the Bain patriarch got to letting loose on “guy’s nights out” were monthly poker games. Gettogethers rotated through the homes of other churchgoing families, where the wives socialized simultaneously just a room or two away.
“I didn’t leave the wife at home to take care of the kids while I went out with all the guys,” he said. “That kind of stuff leads to dissension in a marriage. We never experienced that. Rose was real good, and I’m not bragging, but I was, too.”
Time
About five years ago, Rose began requiring far more care, mostly provided by her husband.
On a day when she felt up to answering questions, she talked about marriage as a commitment that requires “accepting each other” as a key to their seven-decade run.
Her best piece of marriage advice is: “Be honest, and tell each other how you feel.”
And, speaking honestly, her husband said of her illness, “It’s tough on her, and it’s tough on me.”
But with a foundation of support honed by so many years of mutual admiration, those efforts are merely an extension of the love-in-action they’ve strived for, evinced by a private, meaningful anniversary celebration.
“Me and Rose, there wasn’t anything we were doing deliberately to extend our marriage that many years,” he said. “We acted as a family unit. It was just our manner of living. That is what held us together for 70 years.”