Spark Of Love Kept Fire Burning Through Challenges As Well As Good Times
One October night in 1944, a pretty 17-year-old with a rich alto stepped in front of the camp band to sing “Embraceable You.” Her name was Frances Ericksen.
The tenor sax player, J. Ray Cox, fell instantly in love. Stationed at Farragut Naval Center, he was training as an electrician’s mate.
Three months later, Ray and Frances became engaged, and the following year, on April 21, 1946, they were married. Now, after more than 50 years, they still perform the love songs of the ‘40s together.
“I still deeply enjoy playing for her and listening to her,” says Ray Cox, a semi-retired Coeur d’Alene attorney with thinning silver hair and a performer’s ebullience. “(Her voice) moved me then and it moves me now.”
When they met, Ray played both the piano and the saxophone with the Camp Gilmore Service School Band. Frances, a Coeur d’Alene High School graduate, sang for the servicemen and regularly attended Mormon Sunday School.
They separated for nearly a year when Ray was shipped out to serve in the South Pacific. “It was frightening,” Frances recalls.
“I think life becomes more precious when you realize there may not be a tomorrow,” Ray says.
After their wedding, the Coxes struggled through the lean years, raising three babies and subsisting on macaroni and cheese often short on the cheese. Ray attended law school.
“It seemed like the years we were sacrificing were the years that bound us together,” Ray says.
Two more babies arrived. So did a Coeur d’Alene law practice and three terms in the Idaho state Senate.
Then the couple hit 40. “The isthat-all-there-is? years,” Ray calls them. He lost a state attorney general’s election and was bitterly disappointed.
It was the ‘60s. Their kids were rebelling, listening to rock music neither parent understood. To Ray, the indecipherable lyrics sounded like endless choruses of “Stab your dad.”
Both Ray and Frances were strong-willed, too. The Mormon Church pulled Frances in one direction, Ray’s political career and his love of parties and the occasional drink pulled him in another.
They separated for a year.
During that time, Frances moved to Salt Lake City to start a musical kindergarten. A friend referred her to a marriage counselor. He wanted to see them both.
“I’ll be there on the next plane,” Ray said.
The counselor sized them up quickly. He advised them to give each other a little leeway. Tolerate the church, he told Ray. Tolerate the parties, he told Frances.
But, he told the Coxes, you’ve got to find one thing that you both enjoy that you can do together.
For Frances and Ray, that became golf. Ray had an unspectacular 20 handicap. The children were nearly grown, and now Frances had time for lessons. Soon she was beating him.
The game brought them together. Between shots, they had time to share their lives.
They wound up building a brick home on the 17th fairway at the Avondale Golf & Tennis Club, where they’ve lived for the past 20 years.
During those years, Ray Cox lost plenty of divorce clients by advising warring couples, “If there’s a spark of love left, you should nourish it.”
The Coxes celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary last summer with a cruise on Lake Coeur d’Alene.
Today, they stay close through performances with the Elks Club Dance Band, golf and a shared faith. As Mormons, they believe they’re bound together for eternity.
“We’ve been happier the last two years of our marriage than we ever have,” says Frances Cox, 70, still pretty, with blue-gray eyes, reddish brown hair and rose lipstick.
On a recent snowy afternoon, the Coxes flashed identical beaming grins as they cuddled on the piano bench in their living room. Then Ray played as Frances sang one of his favorites, “The Man I Love.”
Ray Cox, 71, has a message for today’s 40-year-old couples: “The later years of life can be sweeter and better than you ever dreamed of. Stick it out.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 photos (1 color)