A LOVE STORY – 75 Years in the Making

In a colorfully-decorated meeting room at Monument Hill Nursing Center Tuesday in La Grange, a steady stream of well-wishers came to congratulate Willie and Dot Kana.

“We made it,” smiled Dot, 94, as she put her arm around Willie, 98, as he sat in a wheel chair.

Tuesday marked the couple’s 75th wedding anniversary. Seventy-five long years ago, on August 11, 1951, the couple was married at Ascension of Our Lord Catholic Church in Moravia. The memories of that day are as vivid in Dot’s mind as the photos of their wedding that were on display at the party.

The wedding was an entire day-long celebration, which in a way, kind of foretold how long this union would last.

“We got married at 9 a.m. in the morning and the band was playing a polka as we walked out of church,” Dot said. “Then we went to my mom’s house and we had coffee and kolaches for breakfast then we had chicken noodle soup and stew and all the trimming for lunch ... At three o’clock we had, in Czech, svačina, kolaches and coffee again, and then we had dinner at 5 or 6 o’clock. Then we had a dance at 8 o’clock and danced until 1 o’clock in the morning – no air-conditioing, no indoor plumbing.”

When asked the secret to a marriage that lasted 75 years, Dot paused.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I tell you it was rough to start with. We had to count our pennies. We bought a house in Houston and it was tough to make the payments of $68 a month.”

Willie’s government pension ($20 a month) from his service in the Korean War helped make ends meet.

They had two sons, and grand kids and great grand kids have followed.

Dot was from Hallettsville and Willie was from Hostyn, and eventually the couple moved back to this area and bought a home on the bluff outside La Grange.

Dot still lives there but Willie’s in the Monument Hill nursing home. But that doesn’t mean they are apart.

Dot comes to visit Willie. Every day. “He expects it,” one the nursing home employees said. “At 3 o’clock every day he’s in the front lobby – waiting on his beautiful bride.”