A couple in Homestead is celebrating their 70th wedding anniversary on Aug. 12.
Evelyn May Hargis, 88, and Bill Hargis, 90, have lived in their home for 56 years. Bill Hargis, who has almost 50 years in the construction business, built the house in 19 months. He worked on it during the weekends, though Evelyn noted he never worked Sundays.
The home in the Cumberland Homesteads has no sheet rock. Instead, it is made with hard plaster.
“It’s very well insulated, very easy house to heat and air condition,” Bill Hargis said.
The ceiling in their living room features several arches.
“I found this ceiling in a magazine and I said, ‘Can you do that?’ and he said, ‘Why, I believe I can.’ It’s plaster. You can curve the plaster on a metal mesh,” Evelyn said
Bill has lived in the area most of his life and said his grandparents were original Homesteaders. When he was young, he said that people in the area functioned like a family that all came from nothing together.
“That’s why the Homestead project succeeded, everyone helped each other. Like this week we’ll go slaughter Tom’s hogs, next week, Jim, we’ll go get yours,” Evelyn said. “Or come on, girls, Martha’s having another baby, let’s go help her with her children and the new baby. They helped one another.”
“Most of those people are gone. There’s a new generation out here now, but still, you have the same feeling that you could be welcome anywhere,” Bill said.
Bill and Evelyn met during a hayride. They said the secret to a long marriage is support and teamwork.
“You can’t think of yourself only. You’ve become two people and that’s two personalities, two goals, two wishes, two sets of good memories, two sets of bad memories. I’ve never put down any of his goals or aims and he hasn’t mine,” Evelyn said.
“You’ve got to mesh,” Bill said. “We’ve had some disagreements like everybody naturally, but it’s been pretty good.”
They dated for nine months, then married in Homestead Methodist Church. They waited two and a half years before having children.
“That gives a couple time to learn one another and get used to one another’s quirks. When you’re courting and dating you learn quite a bit, but to be in the same house together and having to work through the day and so forth, you learn more,” Evelyn said.
Evelyn and Bill’s children are Keith Hargis and Karen Graham.
“My sister and I would tell you that they don’t come any better than these two. They’ve been shining role models and examples of who you should be as people,” Keith said.
“Their partnership showed me the one thing more important than love in a relationship is respect, and I hold that belief very dear in my own marriage of 27 years with my husband,” Graham said.
Bill and Evelyn said the biggest struggle in their marriage was not interpersonal, but economic. The recession of 1958, or the Eisenhower depression, saw a steep decline in construction projects. Bill picked up small stucco patch jobs to support his family.
“When Kennedy came in, money was turned loose and they started building everywhere. I landed several big jobs then. Everything blossomed from there. We’ve done well ever since then,” Bill said.
It was many years later that Evelyn became an American history teacher at Cumberland County High School. She said her dream of teaching would not have been realized without Bill encouraging her to follow it.