VIDEO | Sirens sound as Newburg couple celebrates 72nd wedding anniversary

Lucy was 21 years old when she got married; Norbie was 18.

“We met at the Newburg centennial picnic,” said Lucy. It was July 27, 1947.

“I was there with my parents, standing on the merry go round with my little sister and he was looking at me.”

Norbert was with his buddies. “They were pretty wild,” said Lucy. “They were noisy.”

It did not take long and the pair were going out. Norbert picked her up in his black 1931 Chevrolet. The four-door had spoke wheels and there was white writing on the driver’s side and passenger doors. “Don’t spit the driver can’t swim” and “Peaches here’s your can.”

Lucy is almost 93.  Norbert turned 90 in April. Both vividly recall their wedding day August 28, 1948.

“We were married in the Newburg Holy Trinity priest’s house,” said Lucy. “I was Catholic and Norbert was Lutheran.”

“They wouldn’t marry us in the church,” said Norbert.

“And the bride could not have a sleeveless dress,” Lucy said.

Sitting in the couple’s driveway on Highway M on Friday night, both acknowledged the recent passing of Jack Eggers of Campbellsport. “He drove at my wedding,” said Norbert.

Black-and-white pictures of their wedding day are eased out of a large crisp white envelope. “I bought my dress up in Fond du Lac and that bridal shop, Edith’s, is still open,” said Lucy. “We all went into the priests house; only immediate family were allowed in.”

The couple first lived with Lucy’s grandmother. “Oh, and the rent was high,” said Norbert. “It was $15 a month. “There was no in-door plumbing. We had a hand pump for water and the toilet was up on the hillside.”

Three years after getting married the couple bought 1-acre of land from Lucy’s parents farm. “We started to build our own house in 1951 and we lived in the basement,” said Norbert. “I put tar paper over the top.”

Norbert laid all the block walls in the basement with the help of his brother. “The block were 12 inches and weighed 92-pounds apiece,” he said. “We poured the footings with a hand mixer that had a little electric motor on it. We wheeled it down in the hole on a ramp.”

“We both worked during the day and then we would come home at night and Norbert’s brother would dry mix the mortar during the day and we would eat supper and they would work on the roof half the night under the moonlight,” said Lucy.

“One night a neighbor complained, we can hear you pounding away,” said Norbert. “That was when I was putting shingles on the roof. Not a crack in those walls though….”

It was January 1951 when the couple realized their construction project would be put on hold. Norbert was drafted into the U.S. Army. He entered service in 1952.

15 months and 22 days in Korea

“I never got to go to high school,” said Norbert. “I was put on the farm to help my uncle because he couldn’t get a hired man during the war.”

Norbert was one of seven boys in the family; four of his siblings were also in the service. “My dad was in World War I; my oldest brother was in the Navy during Pearl Harbor. Two of my brothers were in Germany, two of us were in Korea and my youngest son was in Desert Storm.”

Norbert went to Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania for basic training. That was followed by a stint in Washington and later he spent 17 days on a ship to Japan.

“We spent one night in Japan, got back on the boat and I spent the next 15 months and 22 days in Korea,” Norbert said.

Immediately stationed on the front line, Norbert recalls his orders.

“We were on night patrol and walked up to one area and were handed a steel vest and they said ‘put it on — this is the area where you need it’ and we walked some more and pretty soon we were up on Old Baldy,” he said referencing the site of five engagements during a 10-month span of the Korean War.

“For 32 days I helped build bridges while we were under fire,” he said. “There were some Army tanks on a couple mountains up there and we had to get them back for service work.

“The biggest bridge we had was 280-feet long and it was all steel treadway. We couldn’t work during the day because the enemy could see us and every day for the first five days the bridge was knocked out by artillery, so each day we had to tear it out and start over.”

Back home Lucy was working at Badger Meter in Brown Deer. “Most of the time I stayed with my parents. A neighbor man would pick me up and take me down to work where we made bullets,” she said.

Norbert and Lucy corresponded via letter. “It took 29 to 30 days when I mailed a letter to her and it was airmail; for her to mail a letter to me it took the same amount of time,” said Norbert.

One story about mailing a package to Korea involved a homemade hickory nut cake with frosting. “His mother sent the cake and it took weeks to get there and once they received it the frosting was all moldy,” said Lucy.

“The guys around me said, ‘We’re going to have dessert.’ We opened it up and it was green. In true soldier fashion, the fellas got some spoons and scraped the frosting off and ate the cake,” Norbert said smiling.

The letters Lucy received were censored. “The letters all had been opened and if they didn’t like something, they just cut it out,” said Lucy.

Upon his return Norbert said, “It was 19 days going over to Korea on a ship and it took 18 days coming back. Norbert was discharged in 1953 as a staff sergeant Section B in the Second Division Combat Engineers.

“We landed in San Diego, California. We came in on a ship and went under the Golden Gate Bridge and within two hours we went over the top on a bus and we were there two or three days and then bused to Camp Carson Colorado.”

“I drove all the way to Colorado to pick him up and bring him home,” said Lucy.

Returning home

When Norbert and Lucy reunited at home things moved quickly. “The day we moved into the house, June 1955, was the day I brought home my first daughter,” said Lucy.

Over the years the Carters had four boys and four girls. Today their family has grown to 16 grandchildren and eight great grandchildren.

“I used to sew lots of clothes,” said Lucy. “We wore aprons and I had an electric sewing machine and got my material from JC Penny.”

Lucy credits her mother and grandmother for her skills, both sewing and in the kitchen. “The family liked my homemade noodles, homemade sweet rolls, and coffee cakes,” she said.

“And homemade bread,” said Norbert.

Both Norbert and Lucy tended a big garden. “Norbie has been called the Tomato Man,” said Lucy.

The Carters said the hard work they experienced through out their lives is what they credit as the secret to a long and happy marriage.