George M. and Elizabeth Goben, of Lucas, waited until rather late in life to achieve fame, but during 1939 --- when both were 93 --- the duration of their marriage (77 years at the time) gained them national attention.
First, publicists preparing to launch Hollywood's latest offering --- a film entitled "Especially Yours" and starring Loretta Young and David Niven --- launched a nationwide search for a couple to declare "National Romance Champions." They selected the Gobens after a four-month effort and one of the results was an interview broadcast nationally from Des Moines.
And then a Kansas City-based organization called True Vow Keepers (for those married 50 years or longer) also launched a search --- for the nation's longest-married couple. The Gobens were declared the winners, although the search was not exactly scientific.
And so on Sept. 2, 1939, a giant celebratory picnic (sponsored by True Vow Keepers) was held in the school yard at Lucas. Here's a story announcing the picnic as published in The Herald-Patriot of August 31:
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The True Vow Keepers, Chapter No. 5, will hold a picnic Saturday at Lucas in the school yard. All club members must have been married at least 50 years or over.
And they'll be paying honor to the longest wedded couple of them all, Mr. and Mrs. George M. Goben of Lucas, who have a record of being married and never separated a single day or night for 77 years.
To Robert L. Ripley, this couple's long period of marriage is a good feature for his "Believe It or Not" column. But to Mr. and Mrs. Goben, their long record of married life has been the most natural thing in the world.
Mr. Goben summed the whole thing up pretty well. "We've been happy all our lives," he said. And the secret of a happy life? "Just tend to your own business and you'll get along fine."
The couple now 93 years old were married in 1862 in Clarke county. they came to Lucas when the town was just beginning and lived in the third house ever built in that community. For several years after moving to Lucas, Mr. Goben worked with the C.B. & Q. railroad, helping with the construction of the first railroad tracks to be run into Lucas.
For many years afterwards, Mr. Goben was a teamster at (Whitebreast Fuel & Coal Co.) No 1 mine, long before the advent of motor trucks or modern methods of mining. Both he and Mrs. Goben have lived at Lucas continually since moving there shortly after their marriage.
Mrs. Goben, tiny, white-haired, and graciously charming for all her years, came into Iowa when there was no railroad past Eddyville. "My mother died in Illinois," she related. "My father came out here and homesteaded some land. Then he sent for the girls in the family and met us at Eddyville."
Mrs. Goben was 7 years old at the time she came to Iowa. She remembers, however, that there were many Indians in this section. All provisions had to be obtained from Eddyville and hauled to this county on ox-drawn carts.
Changes? "Son, I wish I could tell you all the changes I've seen and of the times I've known," Mr. Goben declared. "I remember running myself to death to see a corn planter --- and I did the same thing when I heard about the mower. You know, in those days, one boy walked along dropping the corn and another walked along after him covering it up. Yes, there have been many wonderful changes."
The couple have never left Lucas except once, and that time they traveled clear to Oregon in 1900. As for marriage, theirs has been a long and happy one but they're not so sure about marriage these days. "Wait until you're ready to die of old age," Mr. Goben suggested humorously. "Marriages don't seem to last now days very well anyway."
Today, Mr. Goben is a little stooped with age and Mrs. Goben at 93 will apologize because "I can't hear so very well any more." But both are keenly alert and are looking forward to the picnic Saturday. A full program of events has been planned to feature some prominent speaker. And a big crowd will be on hand to honor the couple who have been married longer than them all, a couple who have gone through life "using everybody a little better than they ever asked anyone to use them."
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Separation came finally on Aug. 23, 1942, when Elizabeth died at 96 as the result of complications from a broken hip a couple of years earlier. George was 98 when he died on Feb. 25, 1944. The couple were reunited then in Fry Hill Cemetery.
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