Couple’s love outlasts cancer, separation

CHILLICOTHE – By the time she was 14, Mary Coonrod knew she wanted to marry her childhood friend, Marvin Newlan.

On Saturday evening — three failed proposals and nearly 40 years of separation later — the journey of Mary (Coonrod) Green and Marvin Newlan finally reached completion as the two said “I do” in an outdoor ceremony during Ruby and Ron Carter’s third annual Boogie on the Blacktop on Upper Twin Road.

It’s a love that has conquered time itself but at the same time is racing against it. One week before her 59th birthday in March, Mary was diagnosed with stage 4 adenocarcinoma lung cancer and went immediately into chemotherapy. Her relationship with Marvin, she said, has given her reason to fight.

“If it wasn’t for Marvin, I probably wouldn’t be here today to tell you about it, because it really scared me when they told me I had stage 4 lung cancer,” Mary said. “I’ve got three more treatments. I’m hoping that, with the good Lord on my side, that I can live a little longer than what (the doctors gave me). The doctors gave me up in June, but I’m still here today.

“I am doing good, a lot better. I lost my appetite and everything about three or four months ago, and it’s all coming back now and I feel better than I have.”

Ruby Carter, Marvin’s sister, said Mary has always been a fighter and has brought that same approach to her battle with cancer.

“She has got just the best spirit in the world,” Ruby said.

The journey of the Knockemstiff natives began when the two lived 2 miles apart and rode the same bus to Huntington schools. There was a connection right from the start, Mary said.

“I was very young, and when Marvin got on the bus, I said to myself that, when I grow up, I’m going to marry Marvin Newlan,” she said. “I was in love at 14 with Marvin.”

The two enjoyed a teen romance from 1971 to 1973, but despite her feelings for Marvin and marriage proposals from him, Mary wasn’t sure it would work out, and the couple split. She would end up leaving for Gallipolis, and it appeared the relationship was another casualty of young love gone awry.

Marvin ended up marrying twice to women from Knockemstiff. His first wife died at age 32, leaving him with four boys to raise on his own. His second marriage ended in divorce.

Mary, meanwhile, was in a marriage that lasted 30 years and produced two daughters before her husband died in 2009.

As each new year passed since they had parted and started living separate lives, both admit that thoughts of their childhood romance were never banished totally from their minds nor were the feelings for each other from their hearts.

“I knew she was going to show back up one of these days,” Marvin said.

Marvin’s faith, of which he speaks strongly, proved justified. After the death of her husband, Mary decided to return to Ross County in 2012 and look to see whether she could find her former flame and reignite the relationship.

“She came looking for me for quite a while,” Marvin said. “I lived in a camper, and she came to my house after she found out where I lived. She asked me to marry her. I’ll never find another one like her.”

Mary’s proposal came about a year ago. On Saturday, the relationship came full circle.

Marvin points to the heavens when asked about how the two lovers’ paths crossed again after all of these years.

“It’s that man up there,” he said. “I thank him every morning when I get up, and I thank him every night when I go to bed. He’s been in my heart for years, and she is, too.”