Day Six: Challenges brought them closer

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.

Sue and Ralph Riley live on South Green Street in Maricopa, where they are “semi retired” and stay busy with their hobbies and the properties they own.

Sue, 64, was 18 when the couple married and Ralph, 65, was 19.

Ralph recalled the day they met.

“It was a Saturday in 1964 and a friend and I were just driving around,” he said. “Sue’s 1956 Chevy and my new Chevy Malibu were traveling, side by side, down a street and we struck up a conversation through the open car windows. We agreed to pull over to the Coolidge city park to talk a while. We met again later that night at the local root beer stand.”

It wasn’t exactly love at first sight, Ralph said, “But I just knew she was the one for life.”

Sue said she actually had a boyfriend when the two met and thought Ralph would be a good choice for one of her girlfriends.

“It took a few meetings, and getting to know one another, before being actually interested in him. Then, another one of my girl friends started going with Ralph’s friend. So we kept being thrown together in different situations.”

Ralph said he thought Sue was beautiful, intelligent and had good values.

“We had long talks that showed me she had been brought up with values I agreed with,” he said. “Our families liked each other, and we were all old-fashioned.”

Sue said she liked that “Ralph had plans about his future, and wanted to further his education. He planned for a successful life and was not afraid of work. We believed in a lot of the same values, even as teenagers.”

Ralph said their challenges have brought them closer over the years.

“You cannot go through what Sue and I have been through and not be closer,” he said. “We were only right at 30 years old when Sue and our son got deathly ill, each with cancer. Having to face that test in life either makes you or breaks you.”

Sue agreed.

“We lost our only son at 13 after a two-year battle with cancer. At the very same time, I went through a deadly cancer battle. We are survivors. We do what we have to do to make it.”