POST FALLS — The secret to a long and happy marriage is simple: unconditional love.

"I've just flat out loved her. That's all I can say. I've loved her — still do," Fred Overlin, 94, said Tuesday. "I told her when I first met her I liked her so much I could just eat her up. And I could still do that."

Fred met his bride-to-be when he was fresh out of the Navy, in which he enlisted when he was only 15. Their church in Sheridan, Wyo., had an all-night party when he first laid eyes on her around midnight.

"I don't know, did you chase me home?" Fred said, leaning toward Dorla, 91, who couldn't help but smile and laugh.

"No honey," she responded. "I can hardly hear you, but I heard that."

"We met and I sure did like her," he said.

Fred had an old Ford he bought after he was discharged from the service. He had it rebuilt, and as soon as he got it out of the shop, he picked up his sweetheart to take her out for supper in Buffalo, Wyo.

"He bought me a hamburger," Dorla said, again laughing.

"That's all I could afford!" Fred pleasantly retorted.

That was in 1946. Soon after their first romantic meal, wedding bells rang for the young couple.

"When we were married and got back to Sheridan, friends came from the church and loaded us on — that's when they had fenders on cars — they put us on each fender," Dorla said. "That was the annual Fourth of July celebration, rodeos and all that. The town was just loaded with people. So they go blasting their horns with us on the fender, down Main Street. Some of the guys were hollering, 'You're going to be sorry!'

"Oh, everybody said, 'It's not going to last,'" Dorla added. "I think they're all dead and we're still putting along."

Dorla was just 16 and Fred was 19 when they eloped. They were married by a pastor at a Methodist church in Hardin, Mont.

This elopement business didn't sit well with her family.

"We had just completed the ceremony down in the front of the Methodist Church and in walks the sheriff," Dorla said. "My mother had found out somewhere along the gossip line that, 'Oh, Fred and Dorla are getting married today,' and she called the sheriff from every town around, I think, and he took us to the jail. I say that because his office was in the jail."

She chuckled as she described the scene of being taken away by the sheriff on their wedding day.

"The sheriff called Mother and she said, 'Well, tell them to come home.' She talked to me and said, 'You come right straight home.' Well, we didn't," Dorla said. "We stopped for a hamburger."

Their parents eventually came to terms with the marriage, thinking it wouldn't last but a few months.

"All the gloomers," Dorla said. "I was practically disowned."

Before marrying the love of his life, Fred worked as a boatswain's mate as well as a helmsman in the Navy. He crossed paths with Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Navy Secretary Frank Knox and another famous world leader.

"I got to see Franklin Delano Roosevelt," Fred said.

"He got to see a lot of the dignitaries," Dorla said. "He was about 16 or 17 when he was steering the ship they were on."

The couple had two children, Linda and Larry, and later traveled to Zambia to serve as missionary helpers in 1979. Dorla worked as the only bookkeeper for a large hospital. Fred oversaw a large work crew of locals.

Dorla recalled her worries about being mugged when they went to town one time and she had all the payroll cash in a purse strapped around her. It didn't help that Fred kept saying, "Don't let them see your purse!"

Nothing nefarious occurred, however, and the couple made it safely to their destination.

"I had him right at my elbow," Dorla said.

Fred built them a happy home on Flathead Lake in Montana, where they didn't have a lot of money so he became a self-learned carpenter and woodworker.

"What I told him, he did," Dorla said. "So much he built for us."

The Overlins have been in Post Falls for 21 years. Their daughter passed away when she was just 36, but their son lives in Oregon.

On Friday, the couple will celebrate their 75th wedding anniversary. A small gathering will be held at Garden Plaza, where they have recently become residents.

"We were Christians when we were married," Dorla said. "Even though we were young, we knew the Lord is our savior, and the Lord has kept us through thick and thin all these years, and we give him all the credit for it."

The Lord has kept Dorla and Fred together all these years, and for that, their hearts are grateful.

"We have a Heavenly Father who looks out for us," Dorla said. "When family didn't or wouldn't or couldn't, the Lord did."