Freeland couple celebrate 66 years together

Being married for 66 years isn’t brain surgery, if all the pieces are in place, and if you maintain your perspective, this Freeland couple say.

“There has to be give and take,” Jack Kruckeberg said Monday.

“You have to be forgiving and understanding about everything. And have a sense of humor. That’s what I try to do.”

“And don’t get angry,” his wife added. “We don’t often get angry and have big blowups.”

Kruckeberg, 87, and his wife Beverly, 86, have been together since they married in California in 1944. They’ll celebrate their 66th wedding anniversary with a quiet evening at home on Friday.

“Just the two of us,” Jack Kruckeberg said.

“Maybe with some family,” Beverly Kruckeberg said.

They married during the height of World War II, during which he served with a Navy Seabees construction battalion at Guadalcanal.

“I proposed when I was overseas, and she accepted, probably hoping I wouldn’t come back,” he chuckled.

The pair met while working at the Lockheed Aircraft Corp. in Burbank in 1942.

She worked in the office, and he worked on the assembly line, installing heating units in Lockheed Hudson bombers.

“That was very important work,” he said.

Since then, they have accumulated two sons, a daughter, six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, currently scattered “all over the world,” Jack Kruckeberg said.

He said he had a printing business in Los Angeles for 43 years before retiring and moving to Idaho, and then to Freeland.

They still share a love of traveling, especially cruises and car trips, the outdoors, and visiting with members of their family.

He does the driving, he acknowledged.

“He said that?” his wife said later with a laugh.

“I drove all my life, but when we retired, we got down to one car. He doesn’t have enough to do, so I let him drive.

“I could drive, but I don’t really care anymore,” she added.

She said the highlight of her life so far has been her family.

“They’re very important to us,” she said.

Jack Kruckeberg said he has no regrets.

“We’ve had a great life, even with some pitfalls,” he said. “I couldn’t have asked for a better spouse, that’s for sure.”

Do they have another 66 years in them?

“We’re going to try,” he said.

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