FIVE DAYS after her 17th birthday, on June 14, 1942, Muriel Moyers nervously squeezed Leonard Coble’s hand.
“How old do I have to be to get married?” Leonard asked the justice of the peace in Huntsville.
When he responded “21,” 17-year-old Leonard, who most knew as “Shorty,” replied, “Then I’m 21.”
Pointing to his secret girlfriend, Muriel, he added, “And how old does she have to be?”
When the reply came that Muriel must be 18, Leonard pronounced, “Then she’s 18.”
Difficult situations had always marked their lives. They were born less than six years after the armistice of World War I and lived through the aftermath of the Spanish influenza epidemic. In 1929, when they were 4 years old, the stock market crashed, plunging our nation deep into the Great Depression, while the dust bowl wreaked havoc in the Midwest.
The day they fled to Alabama and eloped was no different — across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, World War II raged. American soldiers were being drafted and deployed overseas. More than 2,400 were dead or unaccounted for at Pearl Harbor, and in the Netherlands, just two days earlier, Anne Frank celebrated her 13th birthday. Anne’s father, Otto, had gifted her a diary.
Amongst a world filled with chaos and an uncertain future, Muriel and Shorty devotedly said, “I do.” When the newlyweds returned to Lincoln County, Muriel shared a two-bedroom house with her new in-laws and husband.
“My father-in-law, Mr. Coble, was sitting on the front porch when we got back. I was scared to death. But they welcomed me, and were good to me,” Muriel recalled. “I’d known Shorty since the fifth grade. We met at the Boonshill School after my family moved back from Texas. My daddy wasn’t well, so we’d moved to Kerryville for a drier climate, and my daddy worked at the Shriners Institute there. Shorty was in my class, and we sort of caught each other’s eye. In fact, I failed that year, probably because my mind wasn’t on studying. When he moved up to the high school, we had to see each other through the window.”
According to the Cobles’ daughter, Kathy Shearon, “My desk at Boonshill had their initials carved in it. For their 50th wedding anniversary, my uncle gave them a school book where Daddy had written notes about Mama.”
Before they celebrated their second anniversary, Shorty joined the Navy and was stationed in Detroit for boot camp. Afterward, he and Muriel spent three months in Auburn, Alabama, while he trained as a radioman. When he deployed overseas to serve on the USS Cooner, Muriel moved in with her parents and welcomed their first child, Jerry.
When the Tennessee Valley Authority expanded into Lincoln County, it was Muriel and her father, Earl, who wired almost every house with electricity.
Muriel recalled, “When the war ended, we finally had a radio. Mother, Daddy, and me were all huddled around listening.”
Shorty served in the North Atlantic when the Germans surrendered and was stationed in Hawaii when Japan surrendered.
Their son, Jerry, said, “Daddy was remarkable. Because of his experience in the Navy, he became a leader in Western Union and worked 39 years for them. He had very humble beginnings and never attended college, but he became their director of training.”
Five years after Jerry was born, they welcomed Kathy.
“Our daddy helped put up the very first Western Union satellite called ‘Westar.’ In April 2024, they celebrated the 50th anniversary of that launch,” Kathy said.
In 2012, Shorty battled dementia. Muriel would instruct him to put his arms around her and to say “goodnight.” In a moment of clarity, Shorty said, “Thank you for always being so sweet to me.”
Six weeks and three days before their 79th wedding anniversary, on May 4, 2021, Muriel held Shorty’s hand for the last time here on earth.
“We had a happy marriage. When he saw me coming down the hall at the Veterans Nursing Home, he’d point and say, ‘She’s mine!’ We had 79 years together, and that’s about as much as you can have,” said Muriel.
Muriel celebrated her 100th birthday on June 9.
Her son, Jerry, who is a retired electrical engineer, said, “Our childhood was like a Norman Rockwell painting. All my life, I’ve watched my mother, and her biggest trait is how she’s always been considerate of others and makes friends easily. Behind her smile is a person who cares for and loves others.”
Kathy, who was a registered nurse before she retired, added, “Sometimes, it was to her own detriment. But I am who I am because of my mother and because of her encouragement.”
The Cobles are expecting a new addition and will soon have five generations in Bedford County. GN
