Childhood friends reunited by chance. They’re now celebrating 75 years of marriage

It was a series of coincidences that brought Norvin and Margie Sasser together, and now they can’t be kept apart.

Margie, 97, and Norvin, 95, and are celebrating their wedding anniversary Sunday after 75 years of marriage.

They met in rural Arkansas when Margie was 5 and Norvin was 3. They played together on their neighboring farms until Margie moved away to an adjacent town. They soon forgot all about each other.

It would be 14 years until a chance meeting reconnected them.

Reunited in 1941

Norvin was in Margie’s town for a Fourth of July celebration in 1941 when he spotted a “cute girl with a moon face and a button nose,” but didn’t realize it was his childhood friend. He wanted to invite her to go on the horse-drawn merry-go-round.

But there was a problem. She was with another guy.

“I walked up, pushed between them, and asked if she would like to go for a ride on the merry-go-round,” Norvin said. “I don’t know if she was attracted to me or the prospect of riding a merry-go-round, but we left that guy standing there.”

Norvin and Margie started seeing each other from then on. He visited her on Sundays, either by taking the bus or riding his horse the 10 miles to her town.

They slowly began to realize they were once neighbors, and had in fact crossed paths many times as teenagers without knowing.

But after high school, they went their separate ways again.

Separated again

Norvin moved to Pasco to be one of the first Hanford workers in 1943, and Margie moved to Kansas and became what her daughter called a “Rosie the Riveter” at Boeing. They often wrote to each other.

One day, Norvin got a letter from Margie saying she wasn’t sure she would ever see him again. She was moving with her family to a small town called Yakima.

“Well, I’ll see you sooner than you think because Yakima is only a two-hour bus ride away,” he told her.

They set a marriage date soon after she arrived in Washington, and they were married Sept. 1, 1944. She was 22 and he was 20.

Life philosophy

They said the secret to a long-lasting marriage is dedicating your heart and soul.

“You hear people say its a 50-50 proposition. It isn’t. Each has got to give 100 percent,” Norvin said.

But to do that for 75 years? Easy, he said.

“Let’s just put it this way, I’ve never ended up sleeping on the couch,” he said.

And looking back, they said the years have gone by fast.

“I’d do it all again,” Norvin said.

“I would, too,” said Margie.