7 decades’ worth of Valentine’s Days
Milton and Julia Bryant celebrate their 72nd Valentine’s Day together Saturday. Today is also their 72nd anniversary.
They’ll mark both those milestones in their favorite way — spending a quiet day at home together.
The two are twin pillars of their Grand Ridge community, and it is the strength of their marriage that has set them firmly in the role of mentors and advisors.
The two say mutual respect, the hand of God, common interests and working together toward common goals are what have made their marriage a happy one.
They’ve had so few disagreements through the years that they can’t remember ever really arguing. Harsh words and hard feelings can find no foothold in their lives; when they do disagree over minor matters, they simply agree to disagree and let it go. As they put it, they both “hate a fuss.”
With one of their great-grandchildren now grown and engaged to be married, the young man, Trevor Johnson, and his bride Kaylena might do well to take a page from their book.
Julia was 15 and Milton was 21 the day they met at church back in 1936.
When she and her big family left the gathering that day in their horse and wagon, he jumped up on the wagon and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
That was the beginning of their romance, an innocent courtship carried out in the tradition of the day cheap valentines day jewelry, under the watchful eyes of chaperones at church and at Julia’s home.
He proposed one evening in 1937 while they were sitting on a swing outside her house.
He hadn’t planned to do it, but it just felt right. He went home that night with a peaceful feeling in his heart, an assurance that he’d made the right decision.
He’s never regretted asking, and she’s never regretted saying yes.
He had to ask her father for her hand, and daddy wasn’t crazy about losing his daughter.
When Milton did ask, her father said something along the lines of, “Heck no, I didn’t raise my young’uns to give away.”
Milton then posed a second question.
“Well, will you just stay away (and let it happen)?”
His future father-in-law agreed to that, and he and Julia were married in a simple ceremony at the old domed courthouse in Marianna, with Julia’s mother standing by their side.
They would soon learn that Julia’s dad had “lost” two kids that day. Although she didn’t know it at the time, her bangles bother had gotten married the same day, in the same place.
The Bryants spent their wedding night and two more weeks with her parents, until their first home could be vacated by its tenant at the time.
The old house was small and had cracks in the floor, but they were very happy there. They eventually found a 12-by-12 rug for the 14-by-14 room. And even though it would buckle up in a high wind, it helped shelter them from the chill.
They first outfitted the house with an iron-frame bed, a couple of chairs and a little wood stove that Julia cooked on. They had a fireplace, too, and it played an important, romantic role in their early days as husband and wife.
Every morning before daybreak on those first winter mornings, Milton would get up and light a fire while his wife lay sleeping. He’d go back to bed and, when it had warmed the room a bit, he swept his bride up in his arms and took her to warm by the fire.
At night, he still warms her side of the bed before rolling over to sleep.
Other rituals they began in those early days still survive.
She always made sure he had a buttermilk biscuit and a strong cup of coffee to start his morning right. Milton says she’s always kept him well-fed.
For most of their lives, they ate only what they could raise; their gardens, a shared interest, are something of a legend rings in the community.
She canned, froze and preserved all she could every year to keep the cupboard well supplied. At the ages of 88 and 94 now, the couple depends more often on the grocery store, but they cherish those self-sufficient years.
They also raised chickens then, and viewed them mostly as pets and sources of eggs. Rarely, one might make its way onto the dinner table, but for the most part the animals were doted on and allowed free range.
Milton says his wife worked as hard at home as he did out in the world.
For many years, she cleaned their clothes on a washboard, switching to a wringer washing machine much later, and then to an automatic when that modern marvel first appeared.
She cooked on various models of wood stoves, with Milton keeping a steady supply of wood cut, until modern stoves came on the market.
The Bryants moved several times over the years as Milton farmed, carpentered and did other jobs to keep his growing family fed. With three children, they eventually built their current home on State Road 69 South.
It started as a 24-by-24 structure without interior doors and no partitions when they moved in, which they built for the grand sum of $60. To finish the home, Milton would save a certain amount from his paycheck each week and purchase however much lumber it would buy.
Together, the couple would install the materials bit by bit. It took a long time; money was scarce in those days.
They were used to scrimping, though — they’d lived through the ration days of World War II when kerosene, coffee, sugar and many other supplies were short, and they’d never made a pile of money.
At Christmas in the lean years, they sometimes couldn’t buy toys for the children. But the couple always found a way to make sure they had a Christmas anyway — treats like apples, oranges and raisins, firecrackers for their son, and other small trinkets for their two girls were always provided.
Their home is now quite a bit bigger, with the couple building two additions over the years. In one of those added rooms, their last wood stove holds a place of honor. They kept the washboard, too.
The old treasured objects are valued, they say, not so much for themselves but for the memories attached.
Talking about their upcoming anniversary, they said their marriage has worked for some very simple bracelets reasons.
Trust was one. Milton recalled a time in their lives long ago when trust was needed most.
He had taken on a big job, farming 80 acres for another man. At the end of a long, exhausting stormy day in the peanut field, working with his own mules and equipment, he decided he’d had enough.
When he fell into bed that night, he told his wife, “Honey, tomorrow I’m selling everything I’ve got except you and the young’uns and the furniture.”
He did just that, and embarked on a new venture.
Julia said she never for a moment worried about how that sudden decision might work out.
“Whatever he did, I was satisfied with,” she said. “I knew he’d take care of us; he always did. It didn’t scare me a bit.”
The Bryants say that kind of thinking is one of the things that has kept their marriage strong.
“I don’t try to control too much of what she does, and she doesn’t try to control too much of what I do,” Milton said. “We each have our own way to go on some things.”
That was evident, too, when Julia started learning to drive. Her husband had operated all manner of vehicles through the years, including their first one, a used Model T truck. They later owned a used 1937 Chevy and a brand new 1953 Ford.
With all that experience, Milton tried to teach her how to operate the Oldsmobile he bought her years later.
He couldn’t. “He confused me,” Julia said with a laugh.
So, she struck out on her own. She learned by driving short distances. Because she never really went very far, she didn’t see the need to get a license. She drove without one for eight years, until a highway patrolman got her in his sights.
Julia admits to having the tendency to drive the way her brothers did — she liked to squeal away as she pulled out, and her unique style had caught the officer’s attention. A store owner warned her that a trooper was looking for her and had just pulled away before she drove up.
That’s when she decided she needed a driver’s license.
Teasing his wife about her old driving technique, Milton said she liked to “show out” with her squealing tires. She also had a tendency to “cut corners” at intersections, and it took her a while to earn her license after the trooper took such an interest.
Finding easy humor in things is another key to keeping their marriage sound, they say.
But the number one thing, they agree, is their enduring belief that God put them together in the first place.
The Bryants say their trust in each other is exceeded only by their trust in God and his plans for their lives.
They’ll be giving thanks to that source of guidance Sunday, when their children take them out for dinner, the only thing they want for their anniversary.
They say the “kids,” now 70, 67, and 62 years old, did enough in 2007 when they threw a big 70th anniversary party that almost everyone in their circle attended.
Having their friends and family gather in their honor that year was very special, the couple said, and provided warm memories for them to share this year and beyond.
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