Shipshe couple celebrates 80 years of marriage

Jun. 3—SHIPSHEWANA — When Joyce Miller's family moved to a new house east of Shipshewana during her sophomore year of high school, they had no way of knowing that the move would change the future of their family forever.

Now, Joyce and her husband Truman shared two daughters, six grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren, and two great-great-grandchildren and years of memories together, celebrating their 80th wedding anniversary this Monday.

"We went together a year and a half, maybe, then we broke up for a little while, then we went together again," Joyce said, adding a rumor she'd heard from Truman's brothers many years ago. "We laugh, being married this long, because when we got married, his dad made the remark at home, 'It'll never last.'"

Truman turns 100 this year, and Joyce turned 98 Tuesday. They've been together since they were about 18 and 16 and lived their whole lives in LaGrange County. As teens, they'd go with their friends out to Maple City Ice Cream to get pints of ice cream and split them with a pocket knife to eat with provided wooden spoons.

"Saturday night was date night and we had a group of friends, a lot of them our same age, and we'd get together and we'd drive to Goshen and try to find a parking spot and the boys would go and get some popcorn and we'd all sit in the car and watch the people," Joyce said. "We usually dated on the weekends and Wednesday nights. He'd come over to see me on Wednesday nights."

Truman had left high school at 16 to pursue a career in building trades under his father's business, which needed help at the time, and his son Truman, a skilled craftsman, was as useful in woodworking as any seasoned tradesman.

A year after they got married in 1943, Truman joined the Navy and was sent to the Pacific theater during World War II. It was a week before their first daughter was born. He crossed the Pacific Ocean transporting soldiers six times, and every time, he'd meet with his brother-in-law, who was stationed at the supply station at Pearl Harbor.

Joyce worked at the post office part-time and occasionally full-time and served as bookkeeper and gathered necessary materials for the family construction business.

"We didn't always agree on everything," Joyce said. "We'd sometimes have an argument and I think that's common with most people. People say they never do it but I question that. It's funny that you'd agree with somebody for 70, 80 years and never have a little argument or discussion."

They'd have their fair share of illnesses, surgeries, and troubles, but for the most part, Truman and Joyce remain healthy and strong. Truman bicycles on a trike still occasionally.

"Some people just have one thing after another in families, but the Lord has blessed us with, I think, reasonably good health over the years," she said.

Joyce's parents died in their 60s and at the time, in her early 20s, she thought they were old.

Truman eventually got a pilot's license and they traveled around the country and state, sometimes by car, sometimes with a plane.

"The things you really want to do, we find time to do those things," Joyce said. "I'm an avid reader and people will say, 'I like to read but I just don't have time,' and I think, if you really like to read, you find time to do it. ... I find time because I enjoy reading, rather than sit and watch TV off and on, I get my book out. If you want to do something bad enough, you find time to do it."

The farthest they've flown was to Montana. In total, Truman says he's flown about 3,000 hours of airtime.

"We'd fly out east, and we'd fly to different places," Joyce said. "I remember we went to Redding, Pennsyvlania; [we] used to belong to an organization called Flying Farmers, and every year they had a convention and we'd fly to those whether it was in Iowa or — that's why we went to Montana. ... Every year it seemed like we went somewhere. We went to Florida many, many times in the winter."

At one point, they considered moving there and even purchased a house, but it was only used for vacations. Truman had such a stable job working construction in Indiana, and finding that stability in Florida proved more difficult.

At one point, Truman worked for LeRoy Troyer, the architect responsible for the Ark Encounter, a Kentucky-based themed park showcasing the biblical Noah's Ark, and at one point was considered for construction on the Ark.

"I was always busy building," Truman said.

He built around 50 homes, three or four churches, three or four banks, and a factory. He also built two homes that the family lived in. In 1965, after the Palm Sunday tornadoes ripped through northern Indiana, Truman helped to rebuild Shore Church in Shipshewana. The couple attended the church before its destruction and still does today.

"People were always good to me," he said. "Never had a lawsuit or anything, it was just nice business."

The couple is celebrating 80 years of marriage this Monday.