Bozwells celebrate 70 years despite pandemic

Tess Nelson

The Red Oak Express

It was going to take more than a global pandemic to keep Lester and Dorothy Bozwell away from one another on their 70th wedding anniversary. The couple celebrated seven decades of marriage through a pane of glass Thursday, June 11, at Red Oak Rehab and Care Center.

“There is nowhere else I’d rather be,” said Dorothy.

Five years older than Dorothy, Lester jokes he has known her since she was in diapers. The two families were neighbors off and on growing up, but it wasn’t until Dorothy was 15 and Lester 20, that the two hit it off while at a roller skating rink in Lenox.

“We skated and skated,” Dorothy recalled. “We dated for two years before we got married.”

“She told my sister she wanted to see me, and that was it,” said Lester.

Dorothy nor Lester recall how the marriage proposal exactly happened. Dorothy said Lester had commented he had been looking at rings and soon they were engaged.

“He wanted us to set a date and we set it for two weeks after I graduated from high school,” Dorothy said.

Known as quite the seamstress, Dorothy made her own tea length wedding dress out of blue eyelet, with a v-neck and capped sleeves. She also made her attendant’s dress, who was Delores Smith, Lester’s sister.

“We were married at my folks’ home west of Corning. We just spent the night there at mom and dads. The farmer he worked for at the time converted an old hog house into living quarters. That is where we lived when we were first married,” said Dorothy.

The couple had six children (Ricky, Johnny, Linda Swain Gary, Ray, and Joann Clark) and taught them the value of hard work and an honest wage.

“That’s all the two of us have ever known,” said Dorothy. “I came from a family of eight and Lester came from a family of eight. I have always appreciated how hard he worked.”

The same core values of honesty and hard work is what helped the couple last. However, Lester said the key to a long marriage is, “just do what she says.”

In addition to knowing how to expertly work a needle and thread, Dorothy is known for her cinnamon rolls and rye bread. Catering was something she and daughter, Linda Swain, did for more than 20 years. She was head cook for the Red Oak Community School District for more than 10, and she and Linda provided cinnamon rolls at the Montgomery County Fair for seven years.

Having lived in various places around Red Oak, the couple moved to town in 1979.

For her and Lester’s anniversary party at Red Oak Rehab, she brought with her dozens of homemade cookies; eight different kinds.

Through the use of a cell phone and an i-Pad, Dorothy and Lester were able to communicate and reminisce about the day they wed 70 years ago. They looked through wedding pictures and looked at one another through the window; even touching palms the best they could.

If it weren’t for the pandemic, Dorothy said she would have checked Lester out of the center for the day and the two would have gone out for lunch and then drive by the places they used to live. Lester said they would have done, “whatever she wanted to do.”

Lester, who has been a resident of Red Oak Rehab and Care Center for the past three years, is visited by Dorothy weekly and they speak on the phone frequently.

“You need a haircut,” she joked on Thursday.

“I know I do,” he chuckled back.

The Red Oak Express

2012 Commerce Drive
P.O. Box 377
Red Oak, IA 51566
Phone: 712-623-2566 Fax: 712-623-2568

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