Editor’s note: To celebrate Valentine’s Day, InMaricopa News interviewed six local couples to get their take on what brought them together and what keeps their love strong. For a little longer version of their stories, we focus on one couple each day online through Feb. 14.

Don and Esta Ray Pearce have been married 67 years. They both moved to the Eloy area from Oklahoma -- Don in 1935 and Esta Ray in 1943. Both come from cotton-growing families.

Don, 85, said Esta Ray was a beautiful young lady, and he is still charmed by her loveliness at age 84.

But getting Don -- a rough and tough cowboy -- to notice her in the first place was a challenge, Esta Ray said.

“Donald loved his horses and I had heard earlier that he did not like girls,” she said. “His horse and being a cowboy was all he liked.”

The Pearces said dating when they were young meant two or three couples going out together, often with a chaperone.

And getting together during World War II, when gasoline was rationed and money was tight, could mean a date needed to coincide with a shopping trip or bringing a load of cotton into town.

“We went to cake walks and pie suppers, but mostly our entertainment was hot dog roasts,” Esta Ray said. “That was every Saturday. It was 20 miles into town and gas was rationed.”

Esta Ray said young couples in those days didn’t think about things like how many kids they were going to have or how much money they were going to make -- it was more the reality of getting by and making a living.

“I was riding bulls when I was young and she said this has got to stop,” Don said.

Don left the family farm and bought the NAPA Auto Parts in Maricopa in 1959. The couple raised five daughters on Dallas Smith Lane near Maricopa High School.

Esta Ray said the two have always been compatible.

“With kids you aim to please and not be set in your ways,” she said of her devotion to Don. “We never did have any problems. Whatever it was we could talk about and meet each other at median in between.”

Don said “common sense” is the key to a successful marriage.

Also, Don said, respect is key: “You never call each other names. A misunderstanding is just a way to clear the air. When you calls names and do things disrespectful it hurts forever.”

Romance to Esta Ray, she said, is that her husband has always been affectionate. “I’ve never felt like I missed anything. It is important to me even now to look good for him with what I wear and what I do.”

“The ‘new’ never wore off of our marriages,” she said. “I feel just as loved now as I did 50 years ago.”

Don said he feels the same about his wife, adding, “I don’t compliment her enough, that’s something I should do.”