Love story: They sealed their future after four dates

In 1951, Verne Patten was a young sailor far from home, looking for something to do for the weekend. He walked into a small snack shop in St. John, Newfoundland. He sat down at the counter and a beautiful girl named Elsie walked up to him. “Hello, I haven’t seen you before,” she said. “What’s your name?”

Patten replied, “Well, it might be Simple Simon, but it ain’t.” Not a shining moment in comeback lines. Elsie cocked her head, looked at him quizzically and said, “That’s not what I asked you, is it?”

Fifty-six years later from their Airway Heights living room, Patten is still embarrassed by his attempt at wit. “I told her my name was Pat, which is what all my friends called me,” he said. They chatted until she got off work. Elsie’s vivacious smile and warm manner intrigued him. “Would you like to go for a walk?” she asked. He agreed, and as they parted after their walk Patten secured a date for the following weekend.

“We met each weekend for the next four weeks,” he recalled. “When we met for our fourth date, I asked her to marry me.” The young American captivated Elsie. “He was kind and a nice person,” she said. “What else could you want?” The fact that he was tall and good-looking only added to his appeal. She agreed to his proposal.

“I was so happy I could have shouted the whole city of St. John awake,” Patten said with a grin.

In Newfoundland at that time you had to have parental permission to marry. “My mother wasn’t very happy because she knew I’d be leaving Newfoundland,” Elsie said. “She gave permission and then wanted to take it back.”

The course to marital bliss hit another snag when they went to the priest to make wedding arrangements. He took out the form and began to fill out the marriage application. Patten recalled, “He turned to me and said, ‘What’s your name, young man?’ Verne Patten, I replied.”

Elsie looked at him in surprise. She’d only known him as “Pat” and assumed it was short for Patrick. “Your name is Verne?” she said.

Patten said it was hard to describe the look on Father Fennessey’s face. The priest gazed at the couple for a few seconds and then said, “How long have you two known each other?”

“About a month,” Elsie replied. “We know all we need to know about each other so go ahead with the paperwork.”

The priest declined, saying he couldn’t marry a couple who didn’t even know each other’s names. As Patten recalled, that didn’t slow Elsie down. She told the priest she was sorry he felt that way, but that there was a Protestant church up the hill and they would just get married there.

Father Fennessey urged the couple to take more time, but Patten had already received orders to return stateside, and time was a luxury they didn’t have. The priest finally relented, and on Verne and Elsie’s seventh date they were married.

The next month they sailed to Philadelphia and began their life together. “I got really homesick,” said Elsie. “I’d never spent a night away from my mother’s house. I had a lot of adjusting to do; even the food was different.”

But she adapted, and in September of 1952 Patten left the Navy. “I couldn’t take her on ship, and I didn’t want to go anywhere without her,” he explained.

He quickly joined the Air Force and found it more amenable to family life. Patten served 23 years in the Air Force, and he and Elsie raised seven children.

“They’re a good group of people,” Elsie said of their now grown children. Patten worked for the Air Force as a civilian for 27 years. After he retired the couple stayed in Airway Heights where they’d finished raising their family.

“I’ve never retired,” Elsie said with a laugh. “I’m always busy.” Indeed, the still vivacious lady is well-known in the West Plains community. She’s been active in city government and served on the planning commission.

Verne Patten has kept busy as well. He served on the Airway Heights City Council, and in 2004 his years of journalistic training bore fruit with the release of his first book, “Somewhere Every Day.” He’s already thinking about his next book – a collection of short stories and verse.

In June the couple celebrated their 56th wedding anniversary. “I’ve never understood why people say you have to ‘work’ at marriage,” Elsie said. “It’s not a job. It’s something you should want to do.”

From across the room her husband gazed fondly at her. “Elsie is still as beautiful to me as she was when I met her,” he said. “She’s still my very best friend and the love of my life.”

When asked how she knew she’d made the right decision all those years ago, after such short courtship, Elsie considered the question and then threw up her hands and laughed. “I didn’t even think about it,” she said. “Maybe I was just in the mood.”

And Verne chuckled softly and said, “Fortunately for me, she stayed in the mood.”