Main Street romance makes it to 64by Mary Le Arneal Jerold Kracl and Leona Scheppers were young adults in 1958 with nothing to do after class on a weekend night. Jerry had just come from his Navy Reserve meeting and Leona had come from a night class she had attended in Fremont with some other teachers. The other girls were from North Bend, so they came back to North Bend to cruise the streets. The other girls knew the boys, so they stopped to talk.
“It was a cold, cold night,” Jerry remembered. Though they both remember meeting that night, nothing more happened. A few weeks later, same situation. Still no sparks. Leona’s friends dropped her off at her car and left. Her car would only move in reverse. Along comes Jerry. He figured something was frozen and helped Leona back her car up to her grandmother’s house, Helen Emanuel, by the Catholic church. Then he gave her a ride home to the Webster area. Before he left, he asked her for a date. Their first date was on Valentine’s Day. Things moved quickly. On Thanksgiving day, 1958, they were married. “We went to Minden for our honeymoon because Leona had to be back at school Monday,” Jerry said The Kracls lived on Jerry’s family farm northwest of North Bend until December 1968 when they moved to Schuyler. In July 1968 they opened up the John Deere dealership there and he continued to help on the family farm. The Kracls won the Loving Cup for the longest marriage present at the Old Settlers community worship Sunday morning ]June 25, 2023].
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