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EDEN — Many people would feel fortunate to live 75 years.

John and Ruth Emory are about to celebrate being married that long.

On Sept. 25, it will have been 75 years since Ruth Lawrence, 19 at the time, and John Emory, 21 back then, stood in her grandparents’ living room in Draper while her uncle performed the nuptials that linked their lives.

“It was during the Depression,” recalls Ruth, who is 94. The simple ceremony was held on a Tuesday evening, with only a few family members and John’s best friend, Arthur Holman, attending. Afterward, they cut a cake and the couple headed to their new life in an apartment in Leaksville.

No doubt, someone drove them; they didn’t own a car and wouldn’t until the mid-1950s. There was no honeymoon.

John, now 96, was back at work the next day as  a manager at Pender’s Grocery. Ruth had plenty to do at home. They had to fetch water from an outdoor well, and their bathroom was of the outdoor variety, too.

But being together was all they really needed.

John, who grew up in Leaksville, said that shortly after he met Ruth, who was 15 at the time, he knew he wanted to spend his life with her. Neither one had ever had another sweetheart when they met in 1930.

It was shortly after Ruth’s mother died.  Since her father had been dead for years, she had moved from Martinsville to Draper to live with her grandparents.

“It was rough,” she says of those times. Her grandfather was a Primitive Baptist minister, so she busied herself with church work.

It was while heading to a service at her grandfather’s church in Spray that Ruth met John. 

She and her family had stopped off to visit a family who lived near the church. It was in John’s neighborhood, and by chance, he was walking by the house while they visited. 

“They called me over and introduced me to her,” says John.

He was smitten, and he didn’t waste time. The following Sunday, John, 17 at the time, borrowed his daddy’s 1925 Buick and drove from Leaksville to Draper to call on Ruth.

They courted for four years, taking in local baseball games, going to gatherings at friends’ homes and going to movies — mostly Westerns.

John proposed a few years later and bought Ruth a ring at Pyron’s Jewelry Store.

After they married, they eventually settled in a home on Irving Avenue, across a field from where John’s parents lived. John went to work for Twin City Grocery and Ruth worked as a telephone operator.

Eventually, dialing came into vogue. “That put us all out of work, except one,” says Ruth.

It didn’t matter. Raising their four children, keeping house, helping John’s mother with the garden, the canning and the cooking — especially the cooking — was what made Ruth happy.

She worked for awhile at Belk, which was in Leaksville at the time, but she quit in 1964 when she and John bought the Sealtest Bar and Grill, a popular eatery.

It was where teenagers gathered after school for milkshakes and burgers, and families sat down to dinner with plates heaped with fried chicken.

John managed things and Ruth became the cook, sometimes rolling dough and cutting as many as 400 biscuits for the day.

She also was known for her pies. Lemon chess and chocolate were her specialties.

In the mid-1970s, John retired, letting his daughter and her husband take over. Ruth continued helping out until the business closed in 1993.

Now, in a house west of Eden that the couple purchased a couple of decades ago, Ruth still makes her pies, biscuits, cakes and muffins for neighbors and friends. John spends a lot of time reading, and he still drives.

The couple almost never misses Sunday services and Wednesday night prayer meetings at First Baptist Church in Eden. John’s parents joined that church in 1909, and he’s worshipped there all his life.

As for staying together for 75 years?  Here’s what they say it takes: “A lot of love, a lot of patience, a lot of trust and include the Lord Jesus Christ in your life,” says Ruth.

As for the longevity, they credit their faith for that, too, but for John, there’s a genetic legacy — his mother lived to be 99.

Ruth and John will celebrate their 75th anniversary at a small reception at their church. Three of their four children will be there. Their eldest son, Jim Emory, died in 2000.

The clan also includes seven grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren and one great-great grandchild.

If you’d like to wish Ruth and John a happy anniversary, you may send greetings to John and Ruth Emory, c/o First Baptist Church, 533 Greenwood St., Eden, NC 27288.

Contact Myla Barnhardt at 627-1781, Ext. 116, or myla.barnhardt@news-record.com.