Esther and Bill Goodchild will celebrate their 63rd wedding anniversary this year. At 82 and 85 years old respectively, Esther and Bill met in Columbiana and were married six months later in April of 1963. Since then, they have traveled and lived across the country and raised five children together. Today they continue to share their lives with each other at Brookdale Senior Living on South Lincoln Avenue. (Photo by Morgan Ahart)

SALEM — Residents at Brookdale Senior Living took the chance to reflect on their life-long love stories ahead of Valentines Day on Friday.

At 85 and 82 years old respectively, Bill and Esther Goodchild will celebrate their 63rd wedding anniversary this year. Bill and Esther met at a bar in Columbiana shortly after Bill returned home from deployment in the United States Marine Corps, in which he served for five years as a helicopter crew chief.

“I had been home from the service, from overseas deployment, for one day and two of my buddies and a younger brother said ‘why don’t we go over to the new place in Columbiana?’ I said sure, and we went, and [Esther] was with a bunch of girls and one guy kept bugging her. I could tell she was really unhappy about it, so I went over and said ‘hey, do you want to dance?'”

Said Bill. “We danced and we talked and the evening came to an end, and I said to my buddy who was driving ‘hey you wanna fall me in that car to [East] Liverpool? Because I’ve got to find out where that woman lives.'”

Bill said that after finding out where Esther lived, he told his friend that he would marry her and was quickly proved right as he and Esther were married only a few months later in April of 1963.

“I told my buddy I was gonna marry her and he said, ‘You don’t even know her middle name!’ and I said, ‘well I’m not sure I know her last name but I’m going to marry her anyway,’ and six months later I did,” said Bill.

It wasn’t long before Bill and Esther welcomed their first child ,Kim, who was born “ten days after their first anniversary.” Kim was followed by another daughter and a son, and two foster children whom Bill and Esther adopted. Now a mother herself, Kim said that Bill and Esther now have “five children, eight grandchildren, and 10 great-grandchildren with another due within the week.”

Bill and Esther have enjoyed “kind of a different relationship than a lot of people,” as both were active in community programs like Boy Scouts and 4-H and their own interests, which prompted them to travel frequently.

“I was an outdoorsman, and a Boy Scout leader and was gone a lot, and she was into horses and riding them and traveling all over the country doing it, so she was gone a lot,” said Bill.

Despite their frequent travel Bill and Esther always made time for family, with the entire family taking a two-week vacation together every year. Trips which Bill said their children helped plan.

“I would let the kids help plan where we went and the route, and then everybody got to pick one thing on that route that they wanted to do,” said Bill.

Bill and Esther’s travels took them all over the country, including an eight-year period where they lived in Florida. Bill said after he retired in 2004, he and Esther traveled regularly for 20 years. Both Bill and Esther agreed the best trip they ever took was a 12-week family vacation to Alaska.

Bill and Esther felt the fact they both had their own individual passions which they pursued as well as shared passions was part of what had made their relationship so strong.

“We each did our own things, and then we did a lot of together things,” said Bill.

They said that their recommendation for younger couples was to find that balance between individual and shared passions and to learn when to let things go.

“It’s an old, old adage, but if you get into a squabble don’t go to bed mad. You’ve got to draw a line on how long squabbles last, and each have your own thing and do it. You live together; you don’t have to do everything together. If you do and it works, that’s great, but we never felt that was a requirement. I was gone a lot, and she was gone a lot and neither of us ever really got upset about it,” said Bill.