JEFFERSON TWP — Forged in the fires of the second World War, tempered by decades of experience, four couples living at Concordia Lutheran Ministries, each with over 70 years of matrimony, will celebrate their long-lived loves this Valentine's Day.

Rudy and Teresa Gestl were married Feb. 19, 1944.

Gene and Garnet Howard tied the knot Sept. 1, 1944.

August and Etta Letzelter entered into wedded bliss Aug. 9, 1943.

Mick and Doris Patterson became man and wife Sept. 26, 1945.

If there's a common thread tying the couples' four weddings together, it's one made up of looming overseas service, time limits imposed by military passes and improvisations and make-dos.

Rudy and Teresa Gestl faced secular and religious time constraints leading up to their February wedding in Allentown.

“I was in the Army. After I had done basic training in Louisiana, I was at Camp Reynolds in Greenville, Pa., which was near Erie. We were getting ready to ship out and I had a weekend pass,” he said.

“We got married at Sacred Heart Church in Allentown after the 8 a.m. Mass,” said Teresa Gestl. “It was the weekend before Lent. The church wouldn't perform any marriages during Lent.”

“I got a wedding gown off the rack for $25, and we went to my mother's house for a wedding breakfast. And a wedding dinner and supper too,” she said.

She didn't spend money on invitations either.

“You never needed a formal invitation,” she said. “On a Saturday night if you didn't have anything to do and you heard about a reception, you just went.”

Of course, she said, “Nobody wanted us to get married.”

Maybe it was because they only had been dating for three months.

“We met at a German club. He was a fresh guy, very flirty. He was always hugging me. He was very persistent, never took 'no' for an answer,” Teresa Gestl said.

But she added everyone, including her father and the priest, told her it wasn't the right time to get married.

She said they were worried that her future husband might come home from the war with permanent wounds and she would be forced to care for him.

And while they got married despite the objections, the Gestls didn't have any awkward time setting up a household after the honeymoon stage. The Army saw to that.

“After the ceremony, in three weeks I shipped to Africa,” said Rudy Gestl. “Then Italy. Then I went to India for two years. I did communications and telephone work.”

Teresa Gestl said, “I lived with my parents. I worked all the time as a bookkeeper in my brother's bakery.”

After Rudy's return from overseas, they raised a son and daughter and lived in the Vandergrift area where Rudy worked as an electrician before they moved into Concordia in 2013.

“We used to fight every night. We were really feisty. My father called it love,” said Teresa Gestl.

And the best part of their long marriage?

“Just being there,” said Rudy Gestl. “You always have somebody there. I needed that. She put up with me all that time.”

How to keep a marriage viable?

“I would say stick with it, stick with your marriage vows,” said Teresa Gestl. “Don't let every little thing disturb you. It's not the end of the world. You need to overlook some things.”

Mick and Doris Patterson, formerly of the Apollo/Leechburg area, have been married nearly 71 years.Their Sept. 26, 1945, marriage took place in the bride's home in West Lebanon, Indiana County, when the groom was home on leave from the Navy.The two met in January 1942 on a bus going to the state farm show in Harrisburg, said Doris Patterson.He grew up on a dairy farm in Apollo, Armstrong County, and she grew up on a dairy farm in West Lebanon, Indiana County. They both attended the old Elders Ridge High School.“As soon as I met her, we were high school sweethearts,” Mick Patterson said.He joined the Navy in July 1943 and was a yeoman on the U.S.S. Zeilin, an attack transport ship in the Pacific Theatre.“We took the boys right to the beach and they went in on landing craft,” said Patterson. “We were at Guam, Saipan, Luzon, Leyte Gulf, went to Iwo Jima.”Although he manned a 40 mm cannon during numerous landings on enemy-held beaches, Patterson said he was never wounded.“Before he went into the service he asked me if I would wait for him, and I said I would. I didn't date,” Doris Patterson said.“In 1945, I came home to get married,” he said. “They told us we were going to load up and go to Japan.”Invasion plans for the Japanese mainland ended with the atomic bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Six months later, Patterson said his ship was decommissioned and he, himself, was discharged in April 1946.After the war, the Pattersons worked Nick Patterson's family farm and had three children.“I farmed until 1979 when I sold the farm and the equipment,” he said. “After that I did Kiski Township road work for five years before I retired in 1985. I also drove a bus for 50 years while I was farming. I never retired until I moved here,” he said.Doris Patterson worked as a beautician for 50 years.The Pattersons have been living at Concordia since 2001.Despite their long marriage, Valentine's Day didn't hold special meaning for the Pattersons.“We never did anything special for Valentine's Day. We didn't have time when we were living on the farm,” she said.And what was their secret to long marriage?“We've always been active in our church,” she said. “We have both been elders and deacons. I think that is a big factor, trying to be Christian.”They used to go to the Apollo United Presbyterian Church, where they retain their membership and attend about once a month. Now, for regular worship, the Pattersons attend Saxonburg Memorial United Presbyterian Church.Gene and Garnet Howard also had a wartime marriage.“It was Sept. 1, 1944. I was on leave from the Air Force,” Gene Howard said. “We went to Wellsburg, W.Va. That's the only place we could go and get a quick license. My sister and her husband were married there and showed us the ropes.”Garnet Howard said, “We had known each other since we were 10. Our fathers worked together at Peoples Gas Co. He was a city boy in Elderton and I was a farm girl.”

“It was a foregone conclusion that we were going to get married,” said Gene Howard. It was just a question of when and how.Gene Howard had originally trained as a mechanic in the Air Force, but failed his test. Then he was trained as a ground radio operator, and duty took him from Wisconsin to Florida to California to Utah to Washington state.“I was in Tampa, Fla. I had a weekend off. It was what you call a quickie,” he said. “We weren't allowed to be married, but somehow I got away with it.”After the wedding, he was sent to the Pacific after the Japanese surrender, going from Saipan to Iwo Jima to Guam to Okinawa.Garnet Howard was in nurses' training and graduated in 1945.When Gene Howard got out of the service in March 17, 1946, Garnet Howard was working at a hospital in New Kensington.She was a nurse for 35 years, and he worked for Firestone for 15 years before going into the tire business for himself.“A lot of it has to do with respect for each other and being there for each other,” said Garnet Howard when asked about their long marriage.Wartime played havoc with the plans of August and Etta Letzelter. The war brought them together and then separated them for two years after they said their “I dos.”A Pittsburgh native, August met Etta, who lived in Salisbury, Md., at a USO dance at Camp Somerset in Maryland.At the time, August Letzelter was a combat infantryman in the Army. “I patrolled Ocean City and they were going to set up radio communications along the East Coast,” he said.“I worked for the C&P Telephone Co. and they would bus us to this big ball where you can dance,” said Etta Letzelter. “We met and we just got closer and closer.”Close enough to decide to get married on Aug. 9, 1943. The Letzelers said they worried about getting hitched during the war, but because of the submarine warfare in the Atlantic, he believed he would be stateside for the duration because of his work with the radio communications.“People don't remember what it was like then. We used to have to drive with blacked-out headlights,” said Etta Letzelter.Indeed, Etta Letzelter said one night before she met her future husband the closeness of the war was driven home.“I was in a nightclub with a solider. He was an interpreter and they came in and got him. We later learned they had caught a German spy that night who came ashore at Ocean City and they needed an interpreter,” she said.“We got married at St. Francis DeSales Roman Catholic Church. He had a pass and his best man had a pass,” said Etta Letzelter.“It was a small wedding. We got one night in Ocean City,” she said as a honeymoon. “Three months later he was transferred. Had we known he was going overseas we might not have gotten married.”He was shipped to the Pacific Theatre where he operated a mortar on a mortar ship used to provide artillery support during island invasions.“I saw six invasions and got two Bronze Stars,” he said.While he was away, Etta worked at the telephone company. When he came home after being mustered out of the Army two days after Thanksgiving in 1945, she was able to transfer to Bell of Pennsylvania (“They were happy to get the help.”) when her husband went into the family business running a restaurant bar in Pittsburgh.The war left one lasting effect on their marriage, she said.“For 11 years we didn't have any children. We thought it was something he was subjected to in the Pacific. But then we had one every year for five years,” she said.