Friends reminisce about wedded bliss

By HOLLY PASZCZYNSKA

Staff Writer

Two longtime friends, Ruthie Johnson and Sharon Culbreth, are celebrating big anniversaries this month. Sharon and her husband, Joe, are celebrating their 55th wedding anniversary today.

They might as well be newlyweds: Ruthie and Wayne are celebrating 75 years of marriage a little later in June.

FRIENDS

Sharon and Ruthie met more than 20 years ago, when the Kootenai County Republican Women’s group was formed.

“A lady [I knew] came to me who was working for Sen. Larry Craig, and he felt that Kootenai County should have a Republican Women’s group, so she took me to lunch and asked me if I would start that here,” Sharon said. “At the time I had been on the committee to start Children’s Village and a few other organizations, but I never knew anything about politics, just my interests, but I never was involved before that.”

So she and a friend traveled to Albuquerque to the National Republican Women’s Convention to see what it was about. They agreed to start the group upon their return.

“And that’s how I met Ruthie,” Sharon said. “She just was very involved in helping with getting it going. It was No. 1 for many years in the state, so it was real successful, and it was because of people like her.”

Ruthie was a district assistant for U.S. Sen. Jim McClure for more than 20 years, and has been an Idaho State Committeewoman representing Kootenai County for even longer.

RUTHIE and WAYNE

Ruthie Olson became Ruthie Johnson on June 27, 1942. She was 18 years old at the time, and had met her dream guy three years earlier when she was working at the theater in Wallace.

“I just thought he was the most brilliant, sophisticated, dignified, nicest person I had ever met,” she reminisced fondly.

Wayne’s cousin had been a regular at the theater and just knew the two should meet. Wayne, originally from Pritchard, was a sophomore at UCLA and would come home to visit during breaks. In those days, Ruthie was working hard to complete high school while also working seven days a week between the theater and a nursing home in Silverton. When Wayne was in town they would spend time together, even if it was just the few minutes when Wayne would drive Ruthie from one job to the other.

“So we didn’t go to many places really,” she said.

But the two were meant to be in the same place for the long run.

“Our families weren’t all that happy that we wanted to marry so young, so we waited until he was 21 and I was 18 so we didn’t have to ask them,” Ruthie said. “They didn’t really object, but they knew we were both young and led very busy lives, and the war was on and all these things, so maybe we should wait a while.”

That was in ’42, just months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Wayne had enlisted in the Naval Air Corps and graduated UCLA at age 20; he was allowed to graduate a bit early in order to start his enlistment. His service ended honorably after a plane crash left him injured, and he and Ruthie returned to the Silver Valley after his recovery, where he then spent 20 years as manager of First National Bank of North Idaho in Wallace.

“Our children are undoubtedly the highlight of our marriage,” she said. All three kids graduated from UCLA like their father. “He took the kids skiing every weekend in the winter and fishing on the river in the summers. That took a lot of effort to do those things with all his children.”

Her advice on a successful 75 years?

“Marry a considerate husband. It’s a good point, no matter how you look at it, because you have to marry people who are understanding and are also involved in their own projects. He loved sports and I loved politics. He didn’t go to any national conventions with me, but he was always interested in what I was doing.

“Anyone who has put up with me for 75 years has to be some sort of saint,” she said with a chuckle.

SHARON and JOE

Sharon and her husband, Joe, started their union by accident — literally. They had both worked in the computer room at Rocketdyne in Sacramento.

“I had a car accident while I was out looking for a different job, and I pulled out in front of a bus,” Sharon said. “My car was destroyed. My husband, who I didn’t really know at the time (I had met him once before, and he worked with us) I called him, he pulls up and I kissed him, and that probably was the beginning. I called him to come pick us up. I was with a girlfriend at the time, and we needed a ride to get back to work.”

The two married three months later, on June 15, 1963, in Las Vegas.

While living in California, Joe and Sharon bought and fixed up houses and maintained rental properties, and that led her to a career in real estate. Joe had begun his career in the computer industry while in the Marine Corps, prior to Rocketdyne, and he continued in that field until he retired and bought a farm in Rathdrum, which he works to this day.

They have been dancing together for 31 years now.

“How it started,” said Sharon, “is he was taking private lessons in Spokane on his lunch hour and not telling me. And one day he says to me, ‘Work is having a get-together, so don’t make any plans.’ So as the date got closer I asked him what was going on, what should I wear, and he ignored me. And the next day I said, ‘OK, give me an idea. Am I wearing a formal, or am I wearing a pair of jeans?’ So he says, ‘Do you want me to tell you the truth?’ I told him that’s probably a good idea. And he says, ‘I have been taking dancing lessons and the dance studio said that you should start to come with me.’”

Sharon cited that shared interest as a kind of glue that binds them. She fondly refers to their dancing as “barroom” dancing, rather than ballroom dancing. They go nearly every Friday night, mostly to the Spokane Valley Eagles, but they go whenever and wherever they have the opportunity.

“It’s really important to a marriage, and it doesn’t have to be dancing, but just doing something together,” she said. “We do lots of things independently, but it’s one thing we have together that we both enjoy.”