Leach family marks 70 years of marriage

Bernice and Kenneth Leach (John Rieping/The Madera Tribune)

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Bernice and Kenneth Leach will mark 70 years of marriage today, but the couple already gathered with friends and family to celebrate last weekend at the Meadows club house.

“We met at church after he got home from the Navy,” explained Bernice. “He saw me up in the choir and something told him, ‘Now she’s the one you’re going to marry,’ although we’d never met. I felt the same way as soon as I saw him.”

The couple married Aug. 31, 1947, and had three children, eight grandchildren and more great grandchildren and great great grandchildren. Kenneth was named Farmer of the Year in 2015.

Bernice advises others who wish for long marriages to “have plenty of things in common. Because we went to church together we had the same values, and I prayed a lot. I said, ‘God, send me the right one,’ and so he did. It’s been 70 years now, and it was like yesterday that we got married. … My best advice is pray for the right one.”