Family, Love and Laughter Keys to Couple’s 65 Years

Keith and Shirley Ayer met in college when she was working in a restaurant.

“I needed a ride home one night. And he was there, and he was going my direction,” she said.

“I didn’t let her get out of the car,” he said.

They both laughed as they sat at a dinner table in the Noblesville Jim Dandy Restaurant, sharing about their 65 wonderful years of marriage.

“He said I’ve taken him for a ride ever since,” she said, smiling again.

The Ayers were married 65 years ago today, on Aug. 31, 1957. It was a lovely wedding. Her white dress: “It was gorgeous,” she said. “Mother and I went out and found this beautiful dress,” in Madison, Wis.

“We got married in a small church. My sister and his brother stood up with us. It was the small town church that I was raised in. The reception was in the church basement with cake and ice cream, and we opened our presents,” she said.

How did he know that she was the one?

“Because she was beautiful and smart,” he said.

“We just never thought of not being together,” she said.

“I think that’s because I loved her,” he said.

Shirley remembers when Keith proposed marriage. “I just remember being so happy and excited.”

How did she know that he was the one?

“We both had boyfriends and girlfriends before, and we knew they weren’t the ones,” she said.

Yes, just ask Keith Ayer the best decision he ever made in his life, and he’ll tell you, “I married Shirley.”

Did they ever dream of being married for 65 years?

“I think we’re gonna make 70,” she said last week. “But if he doesn’t learn to play better bidding at Bridge, he may not.”

They laughed.

Laughing together has been one of their secrets to a long and happy marriage.

“We got married. We stayed married,” she said.

Both were born and raised in Wisconsin, she in Mineral Point, and he in Darlington, only 14 miles apart. Both came from working-class families. He graduated high school and went to the military, serving in the U.S. Navy for four years.

Then in college, at University of Wisconsin-Platteville, he studied agriculture, and she studied elementary education. They met just before Valentine’s Day their freshman year when she was 18. They married just six months later. She was 19, and he was 24. They went on a three-day honeymoon, then came back and went back to work. “I didn’t go back to college,” she said. “He did. He finished his college years.”

In the meantime, he took a job in a meat market, and she went to work for a photographer.

Keith said, “We don’t remember a lot of the romance in our life. We remember a lot of the work.”

After they were married in August of 1957, their son Brian, was born the next July. Then Cheryl was born the following July. And then Tim was born, then Allison.

Keith was working a job doing appraisals. But he could get a better job if they moved to Noblesville, which they did in 1964, when Tim was 2.

“When we moved down here, we had to succeed,” Keith said. “We had no money to move back and no place to move back to.”

It was new beginnings, they said. Keith had five brothers, and Shirley came from a family of nine children. “They all stayed in the same place. We picked up and moved,” said Shirley, who when they moved here taught preschool and raised their four kids.

“I was in the appraisal business for 20 years, making loans and appraisals before opening the (Ayer’s) Real Estate office in 1978. We took a great gamble,” he said. The couple became partners in the real-estate business.

“We made some good decisions in our life,” he said.

“When Keith and I went into business, the first thing he told me: ‘Make a decision. Make a decision if it’s right or wrong.’ And I remembered that,” Shirley Ayer said.

They couldn’t have asked for anything more in life.

“I don’t know how we got such great kids, but we do,” Shirley Ayer said.

“That’s our success. If you’ve got a good family, good people and they’re healthy,” that’s all that they could ask for.

They lived in seven different houses. When they were living in Monterey Village, Keith came home one day and said, “We’re going to buy a farm.” So they put the house up for sale and moved to the country.

Having grown up on a farm and studying agriculture, Keith was right at home. “He’s always been a farmer. The kids loved it. We bought a horse. One horse wasn’t any good, so we bought two horses. Then we decided to get into 4-H. We bought pigs, calves, rabbits, and we had seven good years out of the farm,” Shirley said. Now the property is a housing development.

Then they bought property in the Craig Highlands neighborhood and built a new house, where they lived for seven years. Then they bought the old McMahon house on Conner Street across from the old Conner Elementary, and then moved to St. James Place, where they now live. After 18 winters in Florida, they sold a condo there and came back to Indiana year-round, to spend more time with their grandkids. “Family is what keeps us going,” she said.

They’ve both worked hard all of their lives and prided themselves on honesty. There were challenging times, maybe some things he’d do differently or do better. But he wouldn’t change his life. “It’s been a great life,” he said.

“Live your life. Whatever your interest is in life, pursue it and work hard at it. Don’t rely on the government or somebody else to take care of you,” he said.

What else? “Money isn’t everything. Just keep that in mind. But it’s necessary,” he said.

They have the best time in retirement spending time with their eight grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. And playing Bridge at the Senior Citizens Organization center in Noblesville.

“What keeps us going is, we both read. We read about a book a week. We do a thousand-piece puzzle all of the time. We have one on the table all of the time,” Shirley said.

They do play a lot of bridge, Shirley four times a week and Keith a couple of times a week. “And my big thing is my volunteering,” said Shirley, who volunteers three times a week at St. Vincent DePaul NobleCause resale shop in Noblesville. “The people are so great, and that keeps me going,” she said. He also likes to do yardwork, although they’ve just given their John Deere to their grandson and now have a lawn service. But Keith still enjoys taking care of the flowers and working in the yard.

Shirley and Keith operated Ayer’s Real Estate until 2003. “We walked out and turned the keys over to Brian,” who now operates the business out of his Hamilton County Bail Bonds office after selling the former real-estate office on Ninth Street to make room for The Levinson, downtown Noblesville’s first parking garage.

“You can’t stop change,” she said.

“You can either change with the future or you can be left behind,” he said.

The Ayer couple said they’ve met a lot of good people over the years.

“Noblesville was good to us, and hopefully we were good to them.”

Contact Betsy Reason at [email protected]. Read the Keith and Shirley Ayer 65th wedding anniversary announcement in today’s edition of The Times.