By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Herbert and Norma Hoover were told their marriage would never last. That was 72 years ago this June.
The Bowling Green couple, who eat lunch several times a week at the Wood County Senior Center, were there recently for a meal of ham and potatoes. Prior to lunch, they sat politely as a speaker talked about medical marijuana. “That’s expensive,” was Norma Hoover’s only reaction to the medical marijuana talk.
It was money – or lack thereof – that led to the doomed prediction about their marriage.
They grew up in different areas of Ohio – Herbert in Cleveland, and Norma in the Liberty Center area.
Yes, Herbert was named after President Herbert Hoover. His dad, a police officer in Cleveland, thought it couldn’t hurt to have his son share the name with the president.
“He thought that it would be good to have a Herbert Hoover in the family,” the Bowling Green Hoover said.
But times were tough. Hoover’s father died as a young man, and the family moved west. It was there that Herbert would meet his future bride.
Herbert worked at the A&P grocery store, and Norma worked in a bank, both in Napoleon.
“I was just a kid,” Herbert said.
“We had both broken up,” and their mutual friends thought they would make a good match, Norma said.
“They thought I needed someone to straighten me out,” Herbert said, cracking a grin.
Their first official date – after playing cards a few times – was to a basketball game.
Herbert, referred to as a jokester by other ladies at their senior center lunch table, was smitten.
“I really don’t know why I did (fall in love), but it was quick,” he said.
But Norma, the more serious of the two, doesn’t recall experiencing love at first sight.
“I don’t think so,” she said.
Herbert was from the city, and Norma was from farming and church-going stock.
When Norma told her folks about Herbert’s marriage proposal, it didn’t go over well.
“I think your folks thought I was too poor to get married,” Herbert said. His family consisted of his mom, four children, and no money, he said.
When Herbert asked Norma’s father for his daughter’s hand in marriage, the father had a bit of advice.
“He said, ‘You better start going to church,’” Herbert recalled.
Norma’s father also predicted the marriage was doomed to fail.
“He said we’d never make it,” she said. “That was probably what kept our marriage together” – the determination to prove her father wrong.
Their honeymoon was a trip to Toledo, where they visited the zoo.
“I didn’t even have a car,” Herbert recalled. “My brother took us to Toledo to the hotel.”
The first years of their marriage were tough financially. They raised four children – two boys and two girls. They moved to Bowling Green, where Herbert worked at the Ohio Department of Transportation office, opened a real estate business, and ran the service station where Newman’s Marathon sits now.
Norma stayed home to raise their children for about 20 years, then went back to work as a “sales lady” at the real estate office, and as secretary for a nursing school.
Herbert credits his wife for turning him into a churchgoing man. The two have been steady members for years at Trinity United Methodist in Bowling Green. They now have 12 grandchildren, 25 great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild.
Herbert is a little quicker at coming up with reasons he fell for his wife 72 years ago. She was – and still is, he stressed – a good looking woman, and a good farm cook.
“She’s always kind to people. She’s always been that way,” he said.
When prodded, Norma agreed that Herbert was a handsome and hardworking young man.
To this day, her father’s prediction has stuck with her.
“You never give up,” she said of her advice for long marriages.
“I think you have to learn to forgive,” Norma said.
“And work together,” Herbert added.
