Sun City Center couple celebrate their diamond anniversary
By LOIS KINDLE
Gretchen and David Meixner have certainly taken their marriage vows seriously. After seven-and-a-half decades, they’ve been married longer than many folks live.
Last Friday the Sun City Center couple celebrated their upcoming 75th wedding anniversary with 130 guests, including about 50 family members from all over the country and Europe.
The pair met and began dating during high school in State College, Penn. After graduation, they headed off to Penn State College (now known as Penn State University), to study engineering.
“On Dec. 7, 1941, we went for a morning hike at Bear Meadows and decided to get married ‘sometime,’” Gretchen said. “When we got home around 3 p.m. (EST), we learned about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.”
Before long all the men in town had gone to join the military. David was among them.
Only 17 at the time, he volunteered for the Army Air Corps and was placed on inactive duty for about six months until he turned 18. He and Gretchen married on Jan. 18, 1942. Shortly after he left for war.
Over the next five years, David saw conflict as an “island hopper” navigating planes over the Pacific Ocean, completing 34 missions and earning the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Gretchen continued her studies for a while, but then left school to live with her mother while she raised, John, her and David’s first child. He was born shortly before David went overseas.
In early ’46, the warrior returned to the states, moved his family to Houston and was subsequently assigned to San Antonio, where son Steven was born. The following year, David left the military.
“We didn’t have a pot to pee in or a window to throw it out of,” he said. “So I took a number of odd engineering, construction and drafting jobs and registered as a professional engineer in private practice in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland.”
Between 1950 and 1959, David and Gretchen had four more children — Toni, Carl, Sue and Mary Ann, aka “Cricket.” They built their own home in Collegeville, Penn., a suburb of Philadelphia.
“I can still see my pregnant mama holding a hammer in her hand,” Sue said.
As if six kids weren’t enough, between 1964 and 1994, the Meixners participated in the Rotary Youth Exchange program. During that time, they had about 60 foreign students stay in their home for three to four months at a time.
Three of these students grew so close to the family that they became “adopted” members of the clan.
Barbara Hoeller, of Vienna, Austria, was one of them.
“I was a teenager in 1966 and their first exchange student,” she said. “We have maintained contact for 50 years.
“Mom (Gretchen) wrote letters, and I visited several times over the years,” Hoeller continued, noting she came on Gretchen’s 80th birthday, David’s 90th birthday, the Meixners’ 70th wedding anniversary and their 75th. “The family was so completely different than mine (back in Austria). Everyone was so open and they encouraged me to voice my opinion and be myself. That first Christmas, we broke all the rules.”
“They always encouraged us to explore the world,” Cricket said. “That’s what gave me the courage to travel to India on a spiritual and service (mission).”
In 1983 David sold his business and five years later fully “retired” with his bride to Sun City Center.
Never folks to be idle, the Meixners served on the Sun City Center Emergency Squad, Gretchen for 17 years, David for 10. Gretchen also volunteered for about 15 years on the Sun City Center Security Patrol. After 28 years, David is still a member.
“I can never remember a time when we didn’t volunteer,” Gretchen said.
“And they always remembered to play together,” Sue added.
Widely traveled, the couple visited four continents over their years together: Europe, Australia, South America and Asia. They were scout leaders and 4-H teachers. Gretchen even briefly owned a yarn store.
Even in retirement the Meixners stayed active. They hosted mystery dinner theaters in their home, David played pickleball and served on the Sun City Center Community Association board, and both became avid lawn bowlers. Gretchen taught the sport to newcomers for about a dozen years. She also became president of the Sun City Center Lapidary Club, and still lunches with her Tuesday “Lunch Bunch,” former and current members of the Stained Glass Club.
“My failing eyesight and hearing knocked me out of all of them,” she said.
Looking for some other way to contribute, Gretchen began knitting shawls — about one per week for the prayer ministry of the All Paths to God New Thought Church, where she and David are members and Sue is pastor.
Last month, after breaking her right wrist, she had to give up the ministry work — for now.
Gretchen, 93, and David, 92, both said the secret to their long marriage isn’t much of a mystery.
“We made a commitment and hung in there no matter what happened,” David said. “We respected our vows.”
Gretchen agreed.
“We have six wonderful children who love each other and are best friends,” she said. “We also have nine grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren. Our priorities were always service, community and family. I wouldn’t change a thing.”