ZELIENOPLE — Asked what attracted him to his bride of 72 years back in the 1940s, Raymond Kohler’s face lights up and a smile creeps across his face.

“Everything,” he said.

Ray and Patricia “Jean” Kohler met through a mutual friend when Jean was 14 or 15 years old, and got married in her grandparents’ Zelienople home on April 14, 1951, when she was 20.

“My father didn’t know I went out with boys, and one day this little guy in a beanie cap knocks on our door and said ‘Is Jeannie here?’” she recalled with a giggle. “Ever since then, he was welcome in our house.”

Ray said the couple went bowling, ice and roller skating, fishing, and to football and other games at Evans City and Zelienople high schools back then.

He said there was nothing he didn’t like about his best girl during their courtship.

“She was just something you’d appreciate,” Ray said.

Jean agreed that after attending so many local events, she knew the two were compatible.

“I just felt it was meant to be,” she said. “I couldn’t have found a better person and that’s the truth. That man has never complained about anything, and he’s just wonderful.”

After they were married, the couple pursued a hobby together that — especially in the 1950s — was normally reserved for men.

“We went deer hunting and small game hunting,” Ray said. “I loved it.”

The couple stayed at a hunting club in Jean’s hometown of Orbisonia, Huntingdon County, and fished in Canada together.

“We caught a lot of fish,” Jean said of her years angling with Ray.

In more recent times, they escaped the bleak Western Pennsylvania winters and sunned themselves in Ruskin, Fla., between November and May for more than 20 years.

“She’s been a wonderful wife over the years,” said Ray. “We had a lot of parties and places to go together.”

The Kohlers have lived in their Zelienople home for 67 years, where they raised their five children.

As the children grew, the family’s backyard became the impromptu baseball diamond for the Kohler kids and their friends in the neighborhood, and Ray never got angry when a pitch broke the bedroom window behind home plate.

The oldest of their five children is Harvey, who is 71.

The couple’s other children are Patricia, Rhoda, Carolyn and the late Frank, who perished in 2013 in a mass shooting at the Navy Shipyard in Washington, D.C.

Through good times and bad, Jean said the couple’s love and respect for each other always remained their number-one priority.

Jean admits that when she was young, she never expected to be married for 72 years.

“Of course, I never thought I’d make it to 92 either,” she said.

Their daughter, Patricia Grubbs, of Connoquenessing Township, recalls being a young wife and asking her mother why she had never seen her parents argue.

“I never heard Mom and Dad fight,” Grubbs said. “Not even once.”

It was then she learned that her parents had a policy of discussing their rare disagreements after the children were tucked into bed.

Jean said arguments between the couple were extremely infrequent.

“We were young, and we were in love,” she said. “Really in love.”

The Kohlers’ five children, nine grandchildren, 14 great-grandchildren and nine great-great-grandchildren are sure to celebrate their anniversary each year.

Special events were held in Florida for their 50th anniversary and at the Water Hole at Hartmann’s Deep Valley Golf Course in Jackson Township for their 60th.

“Any reason to get together with family,” Jean said.

Ray was a volunteer firefighter with the former Zelienople Volunteer Fire Department for 25 years, as well as a past president of the Zelienople Sportsman Club.

Jean served on the club’s women’s auxiliary.

Asked if they have any advice for young couples today who want to enjoy 72 years of marriage, the couple gives similar answers.

“You have to not give up,” Jean said. “There’s good and there’s bad, but in the end, it’s all worth it.”

She said she and Ray have always put in the effort and sacrifice needed to have a happy life together.

“We try,” Jean said. “Today, they don’t even try. They just get a divorce.”

Ray had his own advice for young marrieds.

“Be patient. Be kind,” he said. “Enjoy being together, and keep busy.”

Daughter Carolyn Huttinger answered instantly when asked what attributes or practices she thinks have kept her parents together and smiling for 72 years.

“Their love for each other,” she said, “and forgiveness and patience.”