From high school sweethearts to 60 years of marriage
From their days as high school sweethearts in California, Freda and Lowell Cox have been inseparable. (Photo by Preslie Cox)
“During World War II, my father built defense camps all over the country. I grew up moving every three to six months. We’d live a few months in one camp and then go somewhere like Wyoming for several more months, then Virginia, Florida, Missouri, all over the place. We’d live in tents, quonset huts or whatever was available that the company could put us in. My father was a craftsman, an ironworker, at the time. His company had a lot of the defense contracts to build these places.
“I met Freda while our family was living in California. That was 1955. We were high school sweethearts. My father promised us boys that if we would follow him around the country, that when we got to high school we could stay and graduate from that high school if we wanted to. This was a little mountain community in the Sierras. It was in Tuolumne County, right next door to Yosemite National Park. I wanted to stay, but my father had to go back to Cape Canaveral where he did a lot of work. So he got me a room with a lady he trusted. I moved in and my parents moved 3,000 miles away. I wasn’t scared one bit. Up there in those mountains, it was peaceful and calm with very little crime.
“That went on for about a year and a half. Then Freda’s father was transferred, and he had to move. My father said that if I moved anywhere, I’d have to move with him. He was in Missouri at the time. I understood that position, because it was costing him a lot of money to support me someplace else. So that summer, Freda and I got married. We both were still in high school. I was 16 and she was 18. We knew that by getting married, Dad couldn’t break us up. He wouldn’t try, and I knew it. It pays to know your parents sometimes. He wished us the best. That was 60 years ago.”
— Lowell Cox
(Note: Lowell Cox passed away on Nov. 5, 2018)
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