Shirley St. John gazed fondly at her husband of 59 years as he spoke of their life — the story of how they met as teenagers, survived through war and traveled the world. Her eyes rarely left him as he detailed their adventures together.
Shirley and Wendell St. John, both 84, met their freshman year of high school in the science club; they attended their junior and senior proms together, went to church together and have remained together since then.
“My basic thinking is holistic,” Wendell said. “I would say that I simply love Shirley, and then I would say that I love everything about her.”
Shirley lives in the senior citizen community in Bloomington called Meadowood. On May 29, 2015, she had a stroke and was hospitalized for three weeks. Since then, she has been recovering well, aside from the paralysis of the left side of her body.
Wendell visits his wife every day, most times using the app Uber to do so, he said.
As Wendell spoke about their love, Shirley was mostly quiet, watching her husband. Occasionally, she piped up to add her thoughts to the story.
“He’s wonderfully creative,” she said. “He always comes up with something just a little bit different.”
The couple married on Oct. 6, 1956.
Wendell joined the military from 1953 through 1956 during the Korean conflict. He was sent to Heidelberg, Germany, to the American military headquarters in Europe and worked in a message center, during which Shirley remained at the University of Illinois.
When Wendell came back from the military, the couple got married.
They wanted to “retire young,” he said. To them, this meant not waiting to see the world until after retirement, but doing so at a younger age. Soon after marriage, they purchased first-class tickets for a boat to Europe where they lived for a year before Shirley’s mother became sick and she was forced to return home.
After reuniting, Wendell and Shirley purchased a house in suburban Chicago, he said. Segregation of schools was a major social issue of the time, and the St. Johns decided the best way to implement integration was to send their three children, who are white, to predominantly black schools, Wendell said.
Shirley said their love was logic, not romance.
“We’ve had such a warped view of love through movies and cheap novels and other things, and from my perspective love is much more about, ‘Is he interesting? Does he think about the things that I think are important?’” Shirley said. “I was not very sweet and sticky.”
Wendell echoed his wife’s comment that their love story was not cliché.
“You could have asked us 60 years ago and we would give the same answer — we’re not madly in love, but we know that we’re going to grow in love,” Wendell said.
Wendell and Shirley lived in Japan for 13 years. Eventually, the couple realized they needed to retire. At that time, all three of their children were working in Bloomington, so that’s where the St. John’s decided to stay.
“We have just had a marvelous life living in these various places and living in the environment and with other people in those countries,” Wendell said.
The St. John’s daughter-in-law and granddaughter delivered them cake for Valentine’s Day, which they celebrated Friday instead of Sunday.
Wendell has only missed five days with his wife in the last six months and only because of the danger of snow, he said.
He recalled his favorite part about being married to Shirley.
“I think it’s the fact that she’s such a person of integrity and whether it’s the clothing she wears, the way she wears her hair — the whole thing is always so right on,” he said.
