Fern and Gene Deel show off the card he gave her on
Valentine's Day 1936. Photo by Jim Cooper, Spencer Newspapers
By Jim Cooper, Editor
www.thetimesrecord.net
- Seventy-two years is a long time to keep anything.
But Fern Deel not only has the colorful card her sweetheart gave her on Valentine's Day in 1936, she still has the sweetheart.
Gene Deel was a first-grader at the one-room Stinson school when his teacher's daughter, Fern, a third-grader at Minnora school, visited the classroom for a party. Gene had seen Fern before and had a valentine ready for her.
"That's her on the valentine, I think," Gene, now 77, joked about how his wife of 57-plus years looked back then.
The card features a character reminiscent of Betty Boop sitting atop a suitcase along with the phrase, "Going My Way? Becauseâ¦" and then on the inside, "I've Sure Got a Big 'Case' on You â My Valentine."
Gene recalls being quite accomplished at penmanship at an early age. The card is signed, "To Fern from Gene," in cursive.
Fern remembers the younger Gene as "kind of short and just a little bit heavy," wearing a sweater he didn't like because his mother made him.
The valentine was stored away somewhere with other cards Fern had received and forgotten as the couple's relationship progressed. Gene attended school at Minnora for his final two years and saw Fern, who lived nearby, on a regular basis. Fern stayed at home for a year to care for a younger sister and was relieved of the babysitting duties for a time when another sister came home for lunch.
"She'd come over and play softball at noon," Gene recalled. "Oh yeah (I noticed her). She was a good ballplayer and a pretty girl."
When Gene was 16, he saw Fern again when she was working in the Minnora post office. He drove a buddy there and listened as the buddy asked Fern for a date, but pulled a switch when the two arrived at her house.
"I was there talking to her mother while he stayed in the car," Gene said. "She came out and really looked nice. I put her in the back seat with me."
The buddy only occasionally carried a grudge at losing the girl.
"He tried to whup me every time he got to drinking a little bit," Gene said.
The couple was married on Aug. 2, 1950 and set up residence at Chloe. They still split their time between homes in Chloe and Parkersburg.
They are the parents of two children, Ricky Deel of Parkersburg and Cheryl Hersman of Cottageville, and have six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren with another on the way.
Gene, who served with the Marines during the Korean War, retired from Consolidated Gas. Fern's jobs included working at the former Kellwood Company. She also worked at a restaurant in the former Hotel Spencer Roane, which had a telephone she could use to talk to Gene while he was in the service. She once joined another woman for a 66-hour drive to California to visit Gene at Camp Pendleton.
The couple credits the success of their relationship to shared interests, such as travel, and a simple rule.
"We don't get mad at the same time," a smiling Gene explained.
The discovery of the 1936 valentine came sometime after their marriage had reached its silver anniversary.
"I used to keep some cards and things, but I only had this one card left," Fern recalled of the valentine that is now kept in a safe.
"I couldn't believe it," Gene said.
Gene has given Fern many valentines through the years, including a 16-by-20-inch card last year that she had framed. None can compare, though, to the cute card she was given by that little first-grader all those years ago.
"This one's really special," Fern said.
She could just as easily been talking about her sweetheart, who clearly still has a "case" on her.
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