Rural Routes: 'I don't think I'd change anything': From a one-room school to 70 years of marriage

Editor’s Note: Rural Routes is an ongoing photo feature series about the lives of everyday people in Southeast Missouri. It is scheduled to appear on Mondays in the Southeast Missourian.

Billie Criddle was about 9 or 10 when she met her eventual husband in a one-room country school near Oak Ridge.

That was Charles William Criddle, although Billie said people called him Bill.

Her husband, she said, was born between Oak Ridge and Jackson. She was born in Indiana and eventually made her way to Missouri.

Getting married wasn’t always the plan for the similarly-named pair, at least not for Billie.

The wedding ring of Billie Criddle of Oak Ridge rests her left ring finger as she tends to yardwork Friday outside her home in Oak Ridge.Jacob Wiegand

“I don’t know if we ever dated,” she said. “Bill just kept saying, ‘We’re going to get married.’”

With a laugh, she said it was an idea she wasn’t “too keen on.”

But it was an idea that ultimately came to fruition and resulted in more than seven decades of marriage, three children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

“And now I’m started on great-greats,” she said.

Billie is 88 and said Bill would have turned 89 on April 5, but he died Feb. 18.

Before his passing, Bill was a cook in the military. It was when a much younger Bill came home on leave that, in lieu of waiting, they went to Arkansas to tie the knot through a justice of the peace.

“And he must of been pretty good, because it lasted a long time,” she said of the justice of the peace.

“It wasn’t all roses,” she said. “I don’t think I’d change anything.”

Bill’s responsibilities in the military took them to Bermuda for three-and-a-half years. But they also made their way to other locations such as Louisiana and Montana. In 1967, they made it back to Southeast Missouri.

“Bill always said, ‘I sure am glad that a lot of people don’t know about little ol’ Oak Ridge,’” she said.

Early Friday morning, Billie could be found tending to yardwork outside the Oak Ridge home she said was built by her grandson.

Sitting on her left ring finger, Billie’s wedding ring was present as she worked near the small pond by the house. She said the other day she got a mud ball on the ring that scared her.

“I’ve been taking it off, and I forgot to this morning,” she said.

But she said she typically wears the band all the time.

“I’m lost without it,” she said.