Love Stories: Love grew in farm country

He played basketball.

She played basketball.

He played baseball.

She played shortstop and second base on the boy’s team in seventh grade.

He worked on farms.

She was a farmer’s daughter.

It seems Ken and Veva Jean Hames were meant to be together. They met at Rosalia High School and quickly became an item, though Ken isn’t exactly sure how that happened.

“I guess she became my girlfriend because I still got her,” he said, grinning.

Ken was one of six kids and times were hard. He had to quit school during his junior year to support himself. “I worked at Rosalia Producers, a farmers’ co-op,” he said. “I built grain elevators – went through a keg of nails a day.”

Neither remembers an official proposal, but Veva Jean said one night Ken told her, “I got you a ring.”

He placed it on her finger and she went home to show her dad.

“My dad said, ‘So, when’s this gonna happen?’” she recalled. “I told him we had to make a buck or two before we got married. He told us it had to happen after the fall work was done.”

After graduating, Veva Jean attended Kinman Business University in Spokane. Ken missed her, so he took a job at Centennial Mills until she graduated. They’d already bought a little house in Rosalia and rented it to a teacher.

“We paid $8,000 for it in 1948,” Ken said. “Now, they want $135,000 for it.”

They married Nov. 26, 1949, and Veva Jean took a job at the local bank. They’d barely settled into married life when Ken received a draft notice.

“I’d never been out of the state – barely out of the county and off I went to California,” he said.

And soon he shipped out to Korea.

For two long years, the only contact the pair had was through letters.

“Every day at the bank I’d hear ‘Did ya get a letter from Kenny? Did you hear from Ken?” said Veva Jean.

But letters were few and far between. When she did receive one, it was often torn and mud-stained.

“I don’t ever remember being homesick,” said Ken. “We was so darn busy.”

Veva Jean found other sources of news.

“Some of his buddies had gone ahead of him and were already home. They filled me in on what was going on over there,” she said.

She shrugged. “It didn’t help a bit.”

Like most who slogged their way through Korea, Ken was freezing much of the time.

“We didn’t get boots or winter clothes till the end of December,” he said. “Not even long johns. It was so cold.”

As a sniper, he was often on the move, but he spent quite a bit of time on Heartbreak Ridge.

“I had to pack a few guys out on my back,” said Ken, recalling the bitter battle on the ridge.

“One guy had about 15 holes in his back. He was kicking and screaming. I said, ‘What the Sam Hill are you doing?’” Ken paused. “He quieted down. Don’t think he made it.”

The names of many he fought alongside escape him now, but one fellow stands out.

“I had a Korean friend, Choi Young Gee,” he recalled. “He saved our lives several times.”

When Choi commented that everyone had a watch except him, Ken bought him a watch. After the war Ken didn’t forget about his friend.

“We wanted to sponsor him to come to the States,” he said. “We thought he deserved a chance to come here.”

Alas, though they even contacted their congressman’s office, they were never able to find Choi.

Despite the Army’s offer to promote him to sergeant, Ken was eager to get home.

“I told them there’s no way I’m going back to Inchon,” he said.

When his ship docked in Seattle, Veva Jean was there to meet him.

“I spotted him on the ship before he got off,” she said. “He was the tall one in the middle. I was just so glad to see him. He didn’t look too much different – just thinner.”

She soon found out he’d changed a bit. Though he didn’t have a scratch on him, the war had managed to leave its mark.

“He was jumpy at night. He could hear someone walking down the concrete and would be up and out of bed and at the window,” she recalled. “It drove me crazy. He was so skittish.”

When they’d married Ken told her, “There were six of us kids in my family and we had nothing. I don’t want any kids.”

But after the war, he changed his mind. In April 1954 their daughter, Linda, was born.

Ken still worked at the co-op, so when Veva Jean knew she was in labor she called.

“They didn’t know where he was, but the whole crew went out to find him. They found him out in the back of a farmer’s field, spraying.”

In 1955, they started building a bigger home. Veva Jean drew up the plans.

“We were up there a lot of nights hanging sheet rock and painting,” she said.

Ken laughed. “We called it ‘Snob Hill’ and ‘Mortgage Manor.’ ”

A son, Lee, arrived in May 1956 and a few years later, Ken and Veva Jean took over her family’s farm and ranch, so her dad could retire. Thirty-five years later, Lee took over so his parents could retire. Though they winter in Spokane, they still call the big house on the hill, home.

Freedom from farm life allowed them to hit the open road in their RV. They traveled all over the U.S. and abroad.

When their daughter fell in love with an ROTC student while attending EWU, she debated whether to marry him or wait until he returned from his first posting. Mindful of her two-year separation from Ken, Veva Jean told her, “You marry him and go with him.”

So she did, and when they were sent to Germany, Ken and Veva Jean visited and traveled to France, Switzerland and Austria, as well.

Ken is 87 and Veva Jean, 88, and though they’ve hung up their traveling shoes, they’re still content in spending time together.

“She was always right there, no matter what I done,” said Ken.

Veva Jean nodded. “We work together. We’ve always worked together. It’s just what we do.”