For 40 minutes every day, a man sits on the porch, refusing to allow COVID-19 to separate him from his wife.
Marshall and Mary Ruth Taylor will be celebrating their 70th anniversary May 26th, except this year’s celebration will be a little different.
“We’ve been together the whole 70 years,” he said. “And they’ve been good ones.”
Mary Ruth has been living at the Chandler Nursing Home for the past year and a half after falling a few times.
“She fell three different times and broke her hip,” he said. I had to put her in a rest home on the account of her falling.”
Marshall visits Mary Ruth every single day. It doesn’t matter if its a Saturday or Sunday or if it’s raining or shining, Marshall will visit the Chandler nursing home to spend time with his wife.
“I’ve never missed a day,” he said.
In the past, Marshall would come and eat breakfast with Mary Ruth. With the spread of COVID-19 and the restrictions on visitors, Marshall finds new ways to see his wife.
“Now I can’t get in, so I go down there and sit at the front on the porch and she comes up to the window and we talk to each other on the phone and look at each other,” he said. “Thats all we can do right now.”
Mary Ruth said it’s no fun being separated.
Marshall said they talk on the phone four to five times a day.
“When I get up I call her and see if she had a good night and when she gets ready for bed she calls me and tells me she’s going to bed,” he said. “So, we talk to each other pretty often.”
After Mary Ruth fell she was placed in a nursing home in Shawnee for rehab. Marshall said he drove down to Shawnee every morning for 21 days to visit with her all day.
Marshall said they have been together the whole 70 years and have only been apart when he worked for an oil crew and couldn’t go home until the well was finished being set up.
Marshall and Mary Ruth met on New Year’s Day in 1949.
Marshall and Mary Ruth both had sisters who were roommates.
“I just happened to be at their house one day and she was too,” he said.
Marshall said he took her to the show and they began dating.
“I just started going with her and it didn’t take long,” he said.
Marshall and Mary Ruth were married in Shawnee May 26, 1950. He was 18 and she was 16.
“It’s just been an old and happy life,” she said.
Marshall worked for an Oklahoma Seismograph crew, which took him and his new family all over.
We moved every 3 or 4 weeks,” he said.
Marshall said he worked on the hotshot crew and moved whenever he was told.
“She was always ready to go,” he said.
Marshall said they had their first daughter in 1951 and by the time she was one year old they had lived in three different states and moved 12 to 13 times.
The Marshalls lived in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana.
“We’ve got two good kids, two good grandkids and two good great grandkids,” he said.
Mary Ruth said to keep a marriage strong, God needs to be in the center.
“Put God first and it will all work out,” she said. “You’ve got to put God first.”
Marshall said if two people want their marriage to last, they need to get along.
“It’s a two-way deal and you’ve both got to get along together,” he said. “The Lord helped. You’ve got to ask the Lord to help you.