Falmouth couple marks 70 years of marriage
Falmouth
couple marks
70 years
of marriage
By Nila Harris
FALMOUTH — Jane Aulick Bentle and Omer Bentle celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary May 30. The couple was married May 30, 1954, by Pastor Ben Hubbard at Blanket Creek Baptist Church.
“I thank God every day He put him (Omer) in my life,” Jane said, to which Omer promptly added, “Me too.”
The Bentles grew up in a time of war, tobacco and dairy farming, and uncertainty.
Omer told how they had planned on getting married, but “my number came up,” to serve in the U.S. Army.
He left March 15, 1954, before they were able to finalize their wedding plans.
Fortunately, they said, just a few months later, the two were able to have a church wedding at the church where Jane was a member, near where she was raised.
Jane Aulick and Omer Bentle did not attend the same high school (Jane graduated from Morgan; Omer from Butler High School), nor live in the same vicinity.
But being teens near the same age, they frequented the community hangouts. Although they disagreed whether they met at the bowling alley or the skating rink, they both agreed that it was the building where the modern-day Shenanigans and Shine is located.
It turns out that they were both right. The building once held a bowling alley AND a skating rink.
Omer laughingly stated, “I was floating around looking for a girlfriend.”
Aulick caught his eye, and the rest, as they say, is history. They dated for five and a half years and married when Omer was on leave from the army.
Jane made her own wedding gown and had planted gladiolas to display at the wedding.
“I don’t know why I thought they’d be ready (for the wedding).”
She and her brother ended up going out in a field to pick wild daisies to adorn the church.
The Bentles left for their honeymoon in a 1953 Plymouth bought for $2,300, and paid $1 for five gallons of gas.
After his stint in the Armed Services, Omer went to the University of Kentucky on the GI bill from 1957 to 1960. He got a job working at Reserve Life Insurance Agency in Cincinnati.
In 1967, he went into teaching and taught at Goforth Elementary until 1972, when the schools consolidated.
During his time at Goforth, he served as principal and basketball coach too.
After consolidation, Omer taught science at Pendleton Middle School until he retired in 1990 with 23 years teaching.
Jane completed her college education at Berea College right before Omer went into the service.
Receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration, Jane began her teaching career at Morgan in 1953.
At Morgan, she taught typing, shorthand, bookkeeping, Glee Club and algebra.
She followed Omer to Germany while he was in the service, came back, had their first child, then began teaching at PCHS in 1959.
She retired from Pendleton after almost 33 years in education.
Jane and Omer remember their first teaching salaries: Jane made $2,300 her first year of teaching in 1953; Omer collected $4,600 when he started in 1967.
The Bentles admitted that it wasn’t always easy, especially in the beginning.
“Our relationship was iffy before we married. She would leave for California (to visit relatives) which left me open to date other girls,” Omer quipped.
He was quick to add how they have always been able to “hatch things out to make decisions. We were fortunate we could do that.”
Jane added that Omer is a good Christian man. “I guess I picked the right one,” she said with a smile.
The two raised three daughters, bringing them up in fellowship with The Lord. The oldest, Cynthia, a 1974 PCHS grad, has two daughters and lives in Old Hickory, Tennessee.
Their middle child, Julie, married a Pendleton County man, and they have one son currently attending the University of Memphis on an ROTC scholarship. Julie and her husband, Barry. reside in the county, near the Bentles.
The baby of the family, Lora, lives in Reading, Ohio.