75th Anniversary: Pair met in strawberry patch, tied knot in 1945
A strawberry patch and a possible match-making uncle were the start of the 75-year marriage that Ray and Edith Atkinson will celebrate Sept. 29.
Currently residents of Lowrie Place, 100 Stirling Village, Ray, 95, and Edith, 94, tied the knot on his return from World War II in 1945.
They met when she was 17 and he was 18 in the strawberry fields of his uncle Harry Dyke's farm.“I met him in a strawberry patch picking strawberries for his uncle,” she said. “He's a good picker, but I was a faster picker than him.“His uncle always had us work together,” she said. “I think he had ideas for us.”Whatever Uncle Harry had planned, it worked.“It was love at first sight although Ray said it was love at first fright,” Edith said.They started dating, but their romance was interrupted by World War II.Ray Atkinson was a Navy pharmacist's mate attached to the Second Marine Division serving from 1942 to 1945.He was wounded twice, once on Tarawa in 1943, and again on Saipan in 1943. He received two Purple Hearts, one from the hand of famed Fleet Admiral William Halsey.
“He was a medic and him being a medic that put him in some bad spots,” she said.When he came home in 1945, Edith said the couple didn't waste any time.“He came home on a Saturday and we got married the following Saturday,” she saidAfter the marriage, the Atkinsons lived in Norfolk, Va., for a time before Ray mustered out of the Marines.They finally settled in Meridian where they raised a family that grew to include four children, six grandchildren, 21 great-grandchildren and one newly arrived great-great-grandchild.
Atkinson worked as a cable tools sales coordinator for Spang and Co. of Butler, while Edith worked as a nursing associate at VA Butler Healthcare.Two years ago, they moved to Lowrie Place.Lowrie Place's life enrichment coordinator Carol Warner said that other than Edith using a wheelchair, the Atkinsons are in good health.“There's an open courtyard in the middle and he pushes her through the courtyard,” Warner said.“They don't fight and they are always holding hands, ” Warner said.“We say we do that so we don't beat each other,” Edith commented.Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, celebration of their 75th anniversary is going to be necessarily diminished.“We are going to bring them in the family room,” Wagner said. “And we are going to do a candlelight dinner just for them.“Their children will send flowers and the family will be outside,” she said.Asked what they think is the key to their long marriage, Ray said, “We couldn't get along without each other.”Edith added, “I say we deserve each other.”
“We've kept each other ambulating good,” she said.They agreed a sense of humor was also important.“I always said I was something else, just he hadn't decided what,” Edith said.But the answer was really simple, she decided.“It's love, love, love that kept us together. I think from the first day we met we knew,” Edith said.“We want to keep things going,” she added.But one thing hasn't changed over the years of their marriage.“He still doesn't like strawberries, but I like them,” she said.
