Long-lost art has new place in his heart

OLYMPIA – A South Sound couple recently learned that a good piece of art, like love, can last a lifetime.

Norma McMeekin was a love-struck teen when she sketched two portraits on a piece of scrap plywood for her boyfriend, Bill Cahill.

The two were classmates at Oakville High School.

“I wanted him to think I was the world’s best artist and I loved him,” Norma said. “Bill was so cute. … All the girls loved him.”

Fast-forward nearly 70 years: Bill and Norma Cahill, who celebrated their 66th wedding anniversary Nov. 10, recently rediscovered the artwork.

“I nearly fell over,” Norma said.

A few months ago, the couple visited the farm Bill grew up on to take photographs and reminisce.

Owner Darrell Bosler, who has lived on the property since 1949, suspected she was the Norma who had signed a portrait of “a good lookin’ blonde.”

“It was in the attic,” he said. “We never did throw it away.”

The sketch brought back a flood of memories for Norma, a retired real estate broker.

She remembers feeling disappointed by Bill’s reaction to the portraits of a blonde bombshell on one side and a gritty sailor on the other.

“He blushed and mumbled a ‘Thank you’ but I noticed he was not impressed,” she said.

“Art wasn’t football or basketball or baseball. He couldn’t get excited about a drawing.”

Truth be told, Bill, a retired Olympia Brewery foreman, doesn’t even remember the drawing.

“I was 17 years old at the time,” he said.

And it wasn’t like their first date – a life-changing event he’ll never forget.

“First took her to a show on my 16th birthday, and we’ve kind of been together ever since,” he said. “Her mother said I had to have her home by 11, and I had her home by 11.”

To replace the portrait sketches, the couple presented Bosler with a new painting – a signed landscape by Norma.

“It’s hanging right on the wall above the television,” Bosler said. “It’s real nice – maybe a little too nice for me. But we’ll hang on to it. We’re honored that she did that.”

In the meantime, Bill has become quite attached to the sketches, which Norma said aren’t “all that great of art.”

“He is now thrilled with it,” she said. “Not so much the art, but the whole story.”

She said it’s a miracle that no one had tossed the art into a fire or thrown it in the trash.

“I can just smugly now say, ‘Nobody ruins good art when they see it.’ “