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Artist Grant Wood need look no further than Lanark if he were here today searching for a late 20th century husband and wife to pose for a new American Gothic. Remember that painting? A stern looking farmer holding a pitchfork while his equally solemn wife stands next to him. They seem to symbolize hard work, honesty, integrity, fidelity.
Those qualities ring just as true for Lake and Luvia Flickinger. The retired farm couple observed their 70th wedding anniversary Sunday, November 25, 1979, and they represent a “Carroll County Gothic.” They’ve been through life together and shared its many experiences, both good and bad. Their modesty, however, does not permit them to rhapsodize about why their marriage has lasted through thick and thin. “We’re not perfect; we’ve had our arguments,” admits Lake, looking across the tidy living room into his wife’s eyes. “We just never let our arguments get that serious.”
Neither attempts to expand on this explanation. There’s no need to; seventy years of marriage cannot be broken down into a few sentences. Observance of this singular achievement is explanation enough that they are simply right for each other.
That’s something they found out in the early 1900s. Their first official date was at a Fourth of July celebration in 1905 at Savanna, although a few years earlier Lake Flickinger took Luvia Bashaw on the merry-go-round ride at the Carroll County Fair. Handsome, dark haired Lake courted his attractive girlfriend for four years before they were married on Thanksgiving Day, 1909, in her parents home north of Chadwick. But it did not take that long for them to develop a mutual admiration society.
“I had always admired him, I thought quite a bit of him,” smiles Mrs. Flickinger as she took time last week to recall their life together. “I liked his looks and I liked his ways.” Lake has a quick answer when asked why he chose Luvia Bashaw to be his bride. He retrieves an old photo album and points to a picture of his wife taken in 1904. “That’s why I married her,” he declares, pointing to the photograph. “If she wasn’t the prettiest girl around, then I don’t know one.”
Three children were born from their union. A son, Delmar, farms outside of Lanark while a daughter, Mrs. Richard (Violet) Bates resides in Rockford. Their first child, Donald, died at the age of two. Their family tree spreads out to encompass nine grandchildren and sixteen great-grandchildren. Any great-great-grandkids?, they are asked. “No, we haven’t got that far yet”, laughs Lake.
The Flickingers left their farm in 1944 and moved to their white frame home in Lanark at 215 W. Leland Street. Lake stayed busy helping his son farm and also was a carpenter’s helper for thirteen years. Years passed by but the Flickingers stayed active and relatively healthy; therein lies the secret, they believe. “You have to stay busy, active, I think that’s the best thing,” says Mrs. Flickinger, who enjoys raising flowers and house plants. Chimes in her youthful acting husband, “at 90, I could do 15-20 push-ups, although now (at 93) I can’t.” Maybe his push-up days are over, but Lake says he still mows the lawn, shovels the walk, picks his fruit trees, and keeps his garden looking good.
“And I still drive,” he says, his face wearing a proud smile as he displays his driver’s license. Outwardly they appear at least 10 - 15 years younger than his 93 years and her 92 years and that’s true inwardly as well. Their memories click of dates and places and events at an amazing rate of speed.
“I fell out of the hickory nut tree in 1939,” (Transcriber’s note: Florence L. Horner handwrote 1932 above this date.) begins Lake as he proceeds to tell a visitor how long he was in the hospital, how many times the doctor called on him, and gives an itemized cost of his stay. “I remember when I was 18 I helped pick corn for $1.25 a day and for the entire fall I made $35,” he says. “And they call them ‘the good old days.’” Lake and Luvia have experienced the good days and the bad, but they contend you cannot look back. “We never miss the old days,” says Mrs. Flickinger. “We go right along with the times. We haven’t slowed down too much. We keep going; that’s the best for us, to keep going.”
Lake and Luvia Flickinger have, in turn, kept their marriage going for seven decades, but they insist it’s nothing special. “We’re not perfect, we’re just ordinary people.” So was the couple in Grant Wood’s American Gothic, but they became special. Lake and Luvia Flickinger are special too.
Contributed by Alice Horner - Bob Watson wrote this story which appeared in the Lanark Gazette, November 28, 1979.
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He was 23 and she 22 when they became husband and wife. Teddy Roosevelt had left the U. S. President’s office months earlier and William Taft was the country’s new leader. Farming was what Lake knew and they settled down on a little spread in Rock Creek Twp., south of Lanark. “I have never lived outside of Rock Creek Twp.,” Lake says proudly, adding about his farm operation, “I fed cattle and hogs; I never liked milking.” Lake remains a member of the Carroll County Farm Bureau, an organization of which he became a charter member in 1919.