A picture of young Millie (Nelson) Hurst.

Pictured is pilot Charlie Hurst during his time in the Air Force.

Charlie and Millie Hurst of rural Tarkio, Missouri, will celebrate their 68th wedding anniversary in June of this year. It’s been quite a ride for the two, filled with flying, family, fun, far off travels, fishing, and farming.

Although both admit to having parents and grandparents live to ripe old ages, Millie and Charlie Hurst are adamant that the love for each other has carried them through to now. Born six months apart, the couple (now 88 and 89 years old respectively and nearing 68 years of marriage) continue to share their lives together on the farm east of Tarkio, enjoying the beauty of the countryside and each other’s company.

Charles Hurst was born November 15, 1934, to Charles and Eunice (Kemerling) Hurst. An only child, Charlie grew up on a farm just down the road a mile and half from where he currently lives. In 1931, Charlie’s dad began renting farm ground outside Tarkio from the Craig family. (The Hursts are still renting the land four generations later.) (The Craigs have owned their land since around the 1860-70s and still own four of the five original 400-500 acre tracts.) Charlie’s family raised cattle, pigs, and chickens, and had horses and mules (and Charlie had a pony). There was also a milk cow that Charlie was responsible for collecting from the field every day on his way home from Centerview School so that his father could milk her. Later, it became his duty to milk her, and even later still, his wife’s. Although they had tractors with steel wheels, they also used the horses and mules for their planting and harvesting operation, growing corn, oats, and hay. But it wasn’t all work and no play. On Saturday nights, Charlie and his parents would come to town to enjoy Westerns at the Tarkio Theatre or to visit with friends. People would walk up and down Main Street enjoying the sights and sounds and Charlie even remembered one couple who would drive in from out of town and park on Main Street facing the wrong way so that they could watch all the goings on of a weekend in Tarkio. While Charlie went to the movies, his father would enjoy visiting with Mr. McClary who ran a hardware store.

Charlie was in 4-H as a kid and remembers going on a tour of farms in Atchison County to view calves, one of which was the farm where his future wife lived. Although this meeting was memorable, it wasn’t the first time their eyes had locked, as Millie remembered that Charlie had once winked at her in church.

Mildred “Millie” Nelson was born on May 12, 1935, to Lee and Dora Nelson. She was one of eight children, who with their parents lived a mile west from St. John’s Lutheran Church in the Farmers City community. From her home to the North Polk School to the Farmers City Store to St. John’s and back was her world. It was a lively area with many families living in and around it. [North Polk schoolhouse was later brought to Tarkio and now sits at the corner of 11th and Park streets.] The family was a farm family like so many were in those days. Millie milked cows before school and was involved in 4-H. She was also involved in her church and took catechism classes and attended Sunday school. Although they walked around most places, in later years, Taffy Morton would pick up the kids in a school bus and take them to school. At the time, he said that he wouldn’t retire until all the Nelson kids were finally out of school, and that he did.

The communities were very close with strong bonds. Residents gathered in the country schools for meals and music, programs and dancing. During WWII, ladies would fix dinners for the students at Charlie’s school two or three times a week. Charlie said one of the worst side effects from the country schools closing and consolidating was the loss of those gatherings and that wonderful sense of community; although it wasn’t completely gone, just relocated.

Once Millie and Charlie became a couple, they dated all through high school. Charlie would bring Millie to Tarkio for a malt at Squire’s Ice Cream (Charlie still takes her out for ice cream). Eventually, their love would grow even through their own respective college careers. Charlie was a member of ROTC and majored in soils at the University of Missouri and Millie attended business school in St. Joseph (she then left to work in the bank in Rock Port). Charlie graduated from university and received his commission as a lieutenant in the Air Force June 6, 1956. Millie and Charlie were married just a few weeks later on June 30th. The two left on New Year’s Eve for Bartlesville, Oklahoma, to stay overnight with friends and then continued on to San Antonio, Texas, where Charlie was stationed for a couple of months. On the night before they were to head to their new destination in Winter Haven, Florida, Charlie was on the base. Another Air Force wife who was also alone that night was heavily pregnant (as was Millie), but they weren’t worried as Millie had Charlie’s car. But then, the lady’s water broke and Millie discovered that the car was there, but not the keys. They enlisted a fellow serviceman to drive them to the hospital (which Millie said was a good thing as she had no idea where the hospital was) and he was a good sport about the laboring woman making a mess in his car. A cop even stopped them for speeding, but once he gauged the situation, he told them to follow him to the hospital. [In later years, they were able to reconnect with both the woman and her now grown daughter. Millie said it was great to reminisce.] From that crazy night on, once in Florida, Charlie embarked in pilot’s training. Although they flew out of a civilian airport, the instructors were WWII pilots who had been a part of the Flying Tigers and would dress up in black gloves to their elbows and bandanas around their necks. Even though the outfits may have been for show, the men themselves definitely knew their stuff. From Florida, the family, which now included their first son, Blake, moved to Riverside, California. While stationed there, Charlie was sent to Biloxi, Mississippi, for six weeks to attend an electronics school and New York University in New York City for a month for training on grounds safety. Back at Riverside, Charlie was in charge of handling the classified material and disposing of it when it was no longer needed. He was also the grounds safety officer and would have to write up reports if there were any “incidents.” One such incident included Charlie being sent to the hospital to write up a report on a serviceman suffering from a gunshot wound to the leg. When the man described how he came about being shot, Charlie was quite shocked. The man said he was in the desert practicing his dead man’s spin (a fast draw of pulling the gun out of the holster and spinning the gun forward with your finger on the trigger) when the gun went off and shot him in the leg. Charlie laughed in the telling and said that once he wrote the report and sent it up the chain, he never saw the man again (probably dismissed from the service for his careless antics). Charlie said although he realizes things were different back then and he doesn’t wish anyone to be put in harm’s way, being a part of the service is an amazing experience that he encourages others to take part in.

Following the service, Charlie and Millie came back to Tarkio to live life on the farm. Charlie picked up right where he left off farming and Millie occasionally would work part-time filling in at all the banks in Atchison County when needed. They also picked up gardening and of course stayed occupied raising their boys (who numbered three to also include Kevin and Brooks). In 1982, Tarkio Community Betterment named them the Farm Family of the Year and they were also honored with an award by the Tarkio Chamber of Commerce in 2013. Besides farming and gardening and the occasional round of golf, Charlie stayed busy with the Missouri Corn Growers Association (where he served as president for one year and president of the merchandizing council for two years). He also served on Golden Triangle’s board for many years. Charlie joined the Tarkio First Baptist Church as a nine or 10-year-old and is still a member today. Millie was in a community club and bridge club and taught Sunday school. She also quilted for years. She wrote a Farmer’s Wife column in the newspaper and then a family member compiled them into a book. She also wrote a book about the Farmers City Store. She cans the garden’s bounty, which Millie said is from Charlie’s straight and lined out garden and her crooked one. Charlie and Millie have also gone up to Minnesota to fish for 50 years at Rush Lake. They always have a lot of fun with friends and family and even had quite an experience once when a friend caught a turtle and turned it loose inside Charlie and Millie’s cabin.

They’ve taken some interesting vacations through the years as well. They drove clear up into Fairbanks, Alaska, in the middle of June one summer. They were staying in a bed and breakfast there on the longest day of the year and experienced light all day and night. Since it’s usually cold there, residences don’t have air conditioning. But that day was extremely warm, especially with the extra hours of sunlight beaming down. They took a side trip up to Prudhoe Bay. While there, Millie walked out onto the ice flows close to shore and stepped in the Arctic Ocean (which was just a foot deep, but mighty cold). When they came home, they drove their pickup onto a ferry and traveled down an inland passageway to Washington. They have ventured to Ireland with family and also went to Amsterdam and traveled by boat down the Rhine River to Bern, Switzerland. From Switzerland, they boarded a bullet train and traveled to Paris, France. That was Charlie’s first train ride. Charlie was impressed to be on a train traveling 100 miles per hour. As part of the Missouri Corn Growers Association, Charlie traveled to Ottawa, Canada, and then to Beijing, China, and on to Hong Kong. In Ottawa, some residents ice skate to work by skating on the frozen canals. In warmer weather, the canals have locks that lower the boats down the waterways. In Beijing, everyone was very friendly and the group went to the Great Wall of China and stood atop to see the expansive view. The city was filled with smog and motorscooters would transport riders everywhere or even 250 pound live hogs that were strapped down. Charlie said the flight from Hong Kong to Chicago, Illinois, had no stops and it was the longest flight he’s ever been on!

For Charlie and Millie, they’ve seen a lot of change in their almost 90 years. As a senior in high school, Charlie would come to town with a friend on Thursday nights and they’d go to a restaurant that served a meal that included a steak, baked potato, salad, and a drink for only $1.25. When he went to college, he paid $73 for 16 hours of classes and there were a lot of kids who paid their own way back then. While attending school, he washed test tubes for 50¢ an hour. In their 67 years together, they have also experienced devastation, but have come out stronger and kept their sense of humor. Their house burned down several years ago and they lost everything. For the time being, they moved into a house in Tarkio that was fully furnished. The house sat across from Elsie Fae Rhoades and she invited them to brunch one morning. As Millie carried her empty plate into the kitchen, Elsie Fae told her not to, that her daughter would clean up. Millie told Elsie Fae that in fact, she wasn’t carrying the plate into the kitchen, she was keeping it because she liked the pattern. Of course she was joking, but for once, Elsie Fae was stumped for words.

Charlie and Millie’s 67 years of marriage have formed a loving family bond that has been passed down not only to their three sons, but also to their 10 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren. They all share a close relationship spread through family gatherings and laughter and for some, farming, too. It’s a testament to keeping faith in the hard times, hope for the future, and sustaining love through it all.