they were childhood friends who became lifelong partners
Finding true love and a lifelong partner is something many people strive to do. One Washington state couple started that journey when they were five years old. Married for more than four decades, they are childhood friends who became lifelong partners.
Julie Houk and Ron Bohman have been married for 42 years and are “glad they didn’t give up when the going got hard,” according to the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington.
Keys to A Long Marriage and Happiness
Ron told the newspaper a key to their long marriage and happiness: “Ride out the rough spots. Stick with it.” He and his wife also believe their faith and commitment to each other have helped them, especially during a dark time in their marriage when their youngest daughter died in a car accident in 2004.
Julie offered this advice, the newspaper said: “When the rough spots smooth over, they’re markers of what you’ve been through. They’re reminders that bolster your confidence in your relationship.”
getting to know each other
They first met when they were both five in 1959. In 1961, the paper said, “Julie’s family moved to Spokane, but the two families kept in touch, often vacationing together.”
After Ron graduated from high school in 1972, he moved to Pullman to attend Washington State University, the article said. Julie began attending WSU a year later. For their first date, they went to a barn dance in Spokane.
“Soon they spent football games, study dates and meals together,” the article said. And one day Ron proposed in the lobby of her dorm. He said he had “a lot of grandiose ideas, but I ended up blurting out ‘Will you marry me?”
They married June 25, 1977, three weeks after Julie received her education degree, and moved to Kirkland, Washington, according to the article. Ron worked for “Boeing and then for the family boat engine business, and Julie taught school.”
Their daughters were born in 1980, 1982 and 1988, the paper said. “Julie stayed home with the girls for 13 years before returning to teaching.”
The couple and their daughters moved to Spokane in 1994, “where Ron and Julie opened Genesis Granite, a monument engraving business,” the article said. Later, Julie “taught at Mead Middle School before retiring last year.” Ron had retired in 2015.
healing after tragedy
Tragedy struck in 2004, when their youngest daughter Renae was “killed in a car accident, two days after Christmas. She was 16 years old,”according to the newspaper.
Many couples who lose a child divorce, but Ron and Julie beat the odds. Julie told the paper that counselors told them “60% to 80% of couples who lose a child end up divorced.” But, she added, “We were strong for each other. When one of us fell apart, the other was strong.” She said they “took turns” and “weren’t sure for a long time how we were to survive.”
Happily for the couple, all of their grandchildren live in town, and they “delight in watching them grow. After 42 years of marriage, they’re glad they didn’t give up when the going got hard,”the article said.
