Lee & Dick Pestke

Married: August 4, 1940

Rochester, New York

God is Good – All The Time

Dick and Lee Pestke’s Entire Interview

Dick: Good morning beautiful;

Lee: Good morning handsome!  WOW, we’ve been saying that to each other for a lot of years.

Dick:  Yes, in August it will be 69 years!  Who would have ever imagined?  What’s on our agenda today, beautiful?

Lee:  We’ll have to put our thinking caps on these grey haired heads and put “our story” together for the Women’s Newsletter.  Where do we even begin?

Dick:  That’s easy - let’s start at the beginning – remember how we met?  Just hanging out with friends at John Marshall High School you certainly caught my attention – it was those beautiful legs!

Lee:  Oh, you haven’t changed!  We did have wonderful times though.  Dating was so different then.  We just hung around with so many good friends.  Remember your 1931 Model A Roadster?  We’d all climb into that and head off to Seneca Park; of course not forgetting to always throw in the hand cranked record player – we didn’t want to miss our time to dance and laugh. 

Dick:  Those were great days for sure!  Then we started going “steady” which meant I had a little more time alone with you.  Can you imagine we’d take the trolley uptown to the RKO Palace, watch a movie and have a soda all for $1.00?  Or how about those times we met at the Sugar Bowl Soda Shop and just shared – one soda and two straws all for 15 cents!

Lee:  How about the time you walked me to class and we were holding hands?  The science teacher caught us and boy did we get in trouble!

Dick:  Looking back, I can’t believe some of the decisions we made!  Once I got that job at the gas station and started making 45 cents an hour we thought we were set.  To think we dropped out of school and got married; you age 17 and me 18.  We thought we had the world by the tail.

Lee:  Yes, we did.  We went and got married on August 4, 1940, and then a 3-day honeymoon in Batavia and Niagara Falls.  What a shocker when we came home to find you had lost that wonderful job!  It was a good thing we were living with your Mom and step-Dad or we wouldn’t even have had a roof over our heads.

Dick:  Looking back, though, some good things came out of that.  Remember I went back to night school so I could graduate with my class, and I marched right up to Delco and got another job; and that one lasted 40 years.

Lee:  Well, except when you went to war.  That was a hard time for us.  We had Dick, Jr. and I was pregnant for Gail.  She was born while you were gone and 9 months old before you even saw her.  Fortunately, you were home and the war was over when Linda was born. 

Dick:  The war was really hard; that hasn’t changed from generation to generation.  Even with cell phones and email I’m sure our fighting men still get lonely and afraid.  That was the toughest thing for me.  I loved being a photographer in the Navy, and I certainly saw a lot in the South Pacific.  I was actually part of history when we entered Tokyo Bay and I took pictures of the Japanese surrender.  But none of that took away the loneliness.  I waited for months to receive something from home, even though you were faithful to write every day.

Lee:  I think we can look back now and see that God’s protective hand was on you.  Even though I grew up the daughter of a Methodist minister and you with your Catholic background, I don’t think we realized God’s great love for us until much later in our marriage.

Dick:  You’re right.  It was 1974 when Pastor Mullen led us to the Lord; even then we didn’t really understand the magnitude of that decision.  I think for me it didn’t hit home until 1986.  Remember when you were in the hospital for 47 days and the doctor told me you were not going to make it?  I went home and prayed all night.  The next day I met the doctor as I came off the elevator and he looked at me and said “I don’t know what happened, but your wife has started to improve!”  That’s when I knew first-hand we had a faithful, miraculous God!

Lee:  Praise the Lord!  For me, I think it all started to come together with we were discipled by Irene and Mike Mateyka.  What a blessed time we had with them, studying God’s word.

Dick:  Well, we could go on and on.  What kind of advice do you think we should give to other couples, maybe just starting out?

Lee:  First I’d say that life is full of good times and bad.  We’ve had wonderful trips, great friends, and incredible heartache, but we’ve always been committed to our marriage and each other.  Divorce was never an option for us, and for today’s couples it still shouldn’t be.  We did a lot of foolish things, both of us, and we spent a lot of time forgiving each other.  That’s critical.  I also think that women need to be patient and respectful of their husbands; allowing them to be the leader of the home.

Dick:  I add to that communications.  We don’t always understand what the other is trying to say but we work through it – it’s a daily task, even after 68 years!  We’ve always shared the money too; I think that is important.  Oh, and we’ve always had a budget.  I remember my Mom telling me “The future belongs to those who prepare for it.”  Remember when we wanted to buy our first home and between the two of us we had 5 jobs!

Lee:  There you go, reminiscing again!  Let’s stay focused!

Dick:  That’s the best advice.  Stay focused on the Lord first and then family.  It breaks my heart to hear and see how some parents talk and treat their children.  You should love your children and say it and show it every day; you only get one chance with them and they truly are a blessing from God. 

Lee:  Yes, and even when life seems backwards, like the Lord taking our Dick home before us, we know that God is in control and He has a plan and purpose for everything.  Stay in the Word and pray, pray, pray.

Dick:  Ya know, I truly have the best wife on planet earth; pure and blessed.  I am undeserving.

Lee:  Yes, you are dear; but God is good – all the time.