Love Story: Frank and Carolyn Payne were a match since childhood. Now, they’ve celebrated 70 years of marriage

On Aug. 21, Frank and Carolyn Payne celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary.

That’s 25,568 days of wedded bliss. It makes the Paynes rare. Only one-tenth of 1% of marriages reach this milestone.

The pair grew up together in Caldwell, Idaho, attending the same church.

A Vacation Bible School photo shows Frank wearing his older brother’s World War II sailor hat, standing behind a pig-tailed Carolyn. He was 10, she was 7.

“I had hair back then and my pick of girls,” he said.

But by the time he was in eighth grade, he’d already made up his mind.

Why Carolyn?

In their south Spokane dining room, he grinned and looked at his wife.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he said.

Though they grew up in the same town, their upbringing differed. Frank was the youngest of 10. When WWII began, his father abandoned the family.

“I never saw him again,” Frank said. “We used to say we lived on Tough Street – the farther you went, the tougher it got. We lived in an uninsulated granary.”

He found refuge in work.

“He worked, that was his thing,” Carolyn recalled.

From setting pins at the bowling alley to haying at his aunt’s ranch, Frank found a way to earn what he could.

“We’re the last of the Depression babies,” said Carolyn. “That’s where our values came from.”

She worked as a babysitter, earning 25 cents an hour.

One day, Frank came to see her while she was babysitting.

“Some day, I’d like to have a house like this with you and babies in the bedrooms,” he said.

So, Carolyn knew his intentions.

Formal dates were out of the question, but singing together in the church choir offered them a connection point.

“We held hands under the choir robes,” she said. “And he’d walk me home after.”

She had an affinity for music and by 14, she was the church organist at Grace Lutheran Church.

On one memorable occasion, she walked into youth group with an ice cream cone, having won some kind of bet with the pastor.

“She had moxie,” Frank recalled. “I’m still trying to determine if I like that or not.”

He checked off all the boxes for Carolyn.

“All the big issues of life were decided. We were Lutheran. We worked hard. We loved music.”

She admired Frank’s smarts and his voracious appetite for books.

“A lot of times he’d read to me,” she said. “One moonlit night over the Snake River, he proposed.”

He graduated from high school and worked nights at Simplot, attending the College of Idaho during the day. It was tough to get ahead, so he moved to California and became an apprentice carpenter.

Letters flew between them and though Carolyn had earned a scholarship to the College of Idaho, they decided to get married. Carolyn wore her sister’s wedding dress.

“Our honeymoon was moving to California in our 1946 Dodge that broke down in Seattle,” Frank said.

It took four years, but he earned his associate of arts degree and soon their first child arrived, and the young family returned to Caldwell.

Frank’s dream of a house filled with babies came true. They parented seven children, and he built five of their homes.

When their daughter, Ellie, needed a kidney transplant in 1970, Frank became her donor.

In 1975, the couple established Ernst (Carolyn’s maiden name) and Payne, Inc. The family moved to Spokane in 1981, after Frank began construction of the Hewlett-Packard building in Liberty Lake.

Over the years, they both found ways to enrich their communities. Frank served on library boards in Caldwell and in Spokane County.

Carolyn’s passion for music led her to serve in myriad ways, including with the American Guild of Organists and the Organ Academy, as well as teaching piano and cello for many years.

For 70 years, Carolyn, 88, has appreciated her husband’s steady demeanor.

“I’ve never gotten him to argue with me,” she said. “Being together is our greatest joy.”

And she’s confident in her value to him.

“He can never find his keys or his wallet, so he needs me!”

Her advice to those aspiring to lasting unions is simple.

“You need a lot of humor,” she said. “Not everything is a big deal.”

In keeping with his character, Frank, 91, said marriage is something you work at.

“But work is a pleasure if you enjoy it.”

He has no regrets about the decision to marry his childhood sweetheart all those years ago.

“It turned out to be the wisest thing I ever did.”

Contact Cindy Hval at dchval@juno.com