A Princeton couple has joined a rare club: married 65 years and still smiling, dancing and telling the story of how it all began with one bold step on a Streator dance floor.

Dick and Loretta Volker met after a night of dancing at a Supper Club in Streator. Loretta was having a girls’ night out away from nursing school.

“There were like three or four of them,” he said. “They were there to enjoy the evening, have a few drinks and get a boyfriend or something.”

“Oh, really?” Loretta said.

“So, I introduced myself to her and we danced a few dances and that’s how I got acquainted with her.”

“Tell the truth,” she said. Dick said he thought he was telling the truth.

“I’ll tell it,” she said. “We got onto the dance floor and assumed the dance position and he looked me in the eye and said I don’t know how to dance.”

So she taught him. She told him to pretend there was a square box and to put his right foot forward as she stepped back. They traced the floor together and danced in circles along with the other couples for the remainder of the evening.

They courted for a few years, until one night on a dark street outside of Dick’s favorite restaurant, Mona’s in Toluca, he got down on one knee and asked to share a life.

“It was in front of a boarded-up brick wall,” Loretta said.

“It was the wall of the building, a bowling lane was there,” Dick said.

Regardless, Loretta said yes, and the couple was married on Aug. 27, 1960, at St. Stephen’s Church in Streator.

The couple rented a home in Dwight to start their lives and continue to progress in their careers. Loretta was a nurse and Dick was a traveling sales representative for Coca-Cola. Loretta worked at the Veterans Administration Hospital.

About ten months into the marriage, Dick was called into the Air National Guard and they moved to Peoria until he was deactivated and the couple moved again. This time, he would be selling on the north side of Chicago.

“I was with the fountain division of Coke,” he said. “There are two divisions: bottles and cans. … I was on the syrup side, the foundation side, where you go into a place like McDonald’s, where they go all those syrup dispensers.”

They lived in Lombard for 14 years. The Lilac Village. Throughout their marriage, the couple continued to focus on their careers and family. They had three children, Todd, Eric and Celeste.

While in Lombard, Loretta worked at Elmhurst Memorial Hospital, where she used her nursing degree to help design education and writing programs for new hires. The program, the Nurses Aide Program, was later bought by Illinois and is now called the Certified Nursing Assistant Program.

Then, Dick received a call from a college friend asking if he would like the job as the FS Northern Illinois Sales Manager for the seed division.

It meant moving out to Princeton. Loretta painted the house lilac for Lombard and began working as a girls’ counselor at Covenant Children’s Home in Princeton, which is now closed.

Dick eventually went back to Coca-Cola and retired from the company. After Loretta retired, she became the first female appointed to the Bureau County Board.

When reflecting on their lives together, three children, five grandchildren, successful individual careers, both agree that it worked because they were a unit.

“I guess, you’d say love, right?” Dick said. “We’ve worked together. We raised our kids and they all got college educations. We had arguments, like everybody else, but the next day or evening we’re back and okay.”