The teenagers eloped to St. Louis just before the young groom went off to World War II. Eighty years later, they’re sitting just a couple of feet away from each other in the Greenville assisted-living facility they’ve called home since 2022.
Bob and Ann Cochran, now 97 and 96 years old, tell their connubial success story like nobody else can. So let’s simply listen in as they share their memories with their daughter Kathy Grant, her husband Ron Grant, and a visitor from the Greenville Journal.
They start from when they met at Murphysboro Township High School in downstate Illinois.
Ann: In high school, probably 15.
Bob: You were 16, I was 17. She sat in front of me. We had a study hall.
Ann: And they had a pageant, and I was in the pageant, and the pageant had you get an escort. And I was rather tall then – I’m not now – about 5-6, 5-7 was tall for a woman. So I didn’t know him, but I asked him to be my escort because he was taller than me.
Bob: And she was good-lookin’.
Ann: He was taller, and that just led to this. Here we are.
Kathy: That’s what you get for being in a pageant.
Ann: It was love at first sight for me. I don’t guess I ever dated anybody after him.
Bob: Yeah, you did.
Ann: Did I?
The room fills with laughter. The Grants, who have been married 55 years, said that laughter through the years helped lead to longevity, marital and otherwise.
Just before Ann Yates wed Bob Cochran, Bob signed up for the Merchant Marines.
Ann: I guess he was afraid to leave me and somebody else might grab me, I don’t know.
Kathy: Probably would have.
Bob: I’ll tell you what, she was the prettiest girl in the whole school.
Ann: He’s a handsome dude, too.
After returning, Bob clerked at a shoe manufacturer and earned 50 cents an hour. Ann’s father worked at Brown Shoe Co., which manufactured the iconic children’s brand, Buster Brown.
In 1948, Bob joined Sangamo Electric Co., which made capacitors, clocks, electric meters and, later, sonar, among other products. In 1961, the family moved to Pickens, where Bob ran a plant there and in Walhalla. Ann worked as a homemaker, raising their three children and volunteering all over town.
Bob retired from Sangamo in 1983. Ron points out his father-in-law’s retirement lasted longer than his career.
Greenville Journal: Did you ever have a cross word with each other?
Ann: Oooooh …
Bob: We have had lots of words together.
Kathy: They call them …
Ann: “Discussions.”
Bob: We didn’t agree all the time. We had some disagreements, but we didn’t disagree with each other, we disagreed on what we were talking about.
So what is their secret to nuptial longevity?
Simultaneously: We loved each other.
Bob: We still do.
Ann: It’s just a feeling you have that you don’t have about anybody else. I mean, when I’m around him, I’m completely comfortable. But I’m still always on guard that I don’t hurt his feelings.
Bob: It’s hard to describe the feeling that you have that is fully unto you. You can’t describe it adequately to anybody.
Ron says the two are examples to them, their four grandchildren, six great-grandchildren and 2-year-old great-great-grandchild.
Kathy says her father would share his nuptial wisdom at wedding receptions. Ron says to Bob: “You used to give the kids advice all the time. You always used to say, ‘Be kind to each other.’”
TIMELINE
Aug. 27, 1927: Bob Cochran is born
March 26, 1928: Ann Yates is born
Dec. 30, 1944: Bob and Ann get married
1945: Bob served in Merchant Marines in San Pedro Harbor, California, and the South Pacific
1945: First child, Robert Jr., is born
1947: Sue is born (later Sue Cochran Harrington)
1948: Bob starts at Sangamo Electric Co.
1951: Kathy is born (later Kathy Cochran Grant, married to Ron Grant 55 years)
1958: Three-week family road trip from Murphysboro, Tennessee, to Disneyland, Anaheim, California, camping along the way on U.S. Route 66 in a green 1953 DeSoto Chrysler
December 1961: Family moves to Pickens, where Bob manages Sangamo plants there and in Walhalla
April 24, 1970: First of four grandchildren born
November 1983: Bob retires after 35 years at Sangamo
2007: Family cruises to Caribbean to celebrate their 80th birthdays. Subsequent excursions have included a big reunion in Arkansas, road trips out west (as long as six weeks), and a Mississippi River cruise
December 2022: Bob and Ann move to Greenville
Dec. 30, 2024: Bob and Ann celebrate their 80th anniversary
Source: Kathy Grant
