Zelie couple married more than 7 decades
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.
