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A sad little boy whose wounds were salved by his maternal grandparents, he probably thought he'd never laugh again.
Luckily, he's a Presbyterian and they believe in predestination.
That's how he met Margaret McClure. She was his destiny.
When he and Miss McClure began their courtship, he was in his senior year of high school and she was a sophomore.
They both graduated from Dallas Center High School - he in 1933 and she in 1935.
He moved on to Iowa State to study animal husbandry for three years and she followed him there for awhile.
"I just wanted to go to college," she said of her home economic studies there and she took that chance.
But as soon as he was ready to move on again, she followed.
Her true desire was Orville.
After all, it was the late 1930s and a degree wasn't required when good soil was available.
He became a farmer, supporting his wife and child.
She tilled her own fields, keeping house, teaching Sunday School, and raising their only son on the farmstead a mile and a quarter south of Dallas Center.
"He was a real nice kid," she said of the man who grew to be a pharmaceutical director.
When their son grew to manhood, she began to work outside of the home.
"I worked and was independent," she said, pointing out that the job's close proximity helped immensely in a time when it was not that common for a woman to work outside of the home.
"I do think that my working outside the home made a difference," she said. "Women are more independent. They could have a career of their own and still be a good housewife."
She was good at what she did and very respected, rising to the position of Vice President at Brenton State Bank.
Everyone there got along well, too, she said, working as a team, sharing the load and readily sharing a laugh.
She was even interviewed by the debonair Canadian reporter, soon to be anchor, Peter Jennings (a very nice gentleman, she said). It was the mid-80s and there was a lot of strife for farmers, both nationally and locally, who were losing their land to foreclosures.
Jennings wasn't there just because she was the first woman vice president in the bank's history, though. He was there because he was nosy, she recalled.
He asked questions about the foreclosures that were none of his business and she wasn't having any of it.
So she kept him at bay and went home to Orville. He was her business, after all, and she was good at that, too.
Looking back on their 70 years together, they sit comfortably in their Spurgeon Manor apartment where they've been the last four years, agreeable as ever.
True blue to Dallas Center, they nonetheless did spend 24 winters in Green Valley, Ariz., just south of Tucson.
"One winter," said Orville, "it started snowing on Christmas Eve. Three inches."
Did everyone there think they brought the snow with them from Iowa?
Together, they laugh at the thought.
Their secret, they say, is laughter. The secret to a very happy life filled with one son, two grandsons (it keeps the name going, says Orville) and a rich Presbyterian upbringing.
Laughter.
"We just laugh. We never argue. We never do. We really don't." said Margaret. "We just laugh about everything and enjoy life."
It came naturally, they agree.
And she may have been independent in a career she enjoyed, but her husband also certainly had his good points.
"Orville was real considerate about me too, and helpful," she said. "He learned to cook. If I was late getting home, he'd get the meal started."
His recipes ranged from roast to gingerbread, he said.
Of course, this was mostly true in the winter when he had less to do on the farm.
And they laugh, remembering.
"He was in the house and he had the time, plus he was just a real considerate guy," said Margaret. "Some husbands wouldn't have been that considerate."
But no matter who was cooking, the recipes always called for good humor.
"We just get along good together. We really do. We don't argue," she said. "We don't try to tell the other fellow what he should do."
Except once.
When asked about special memories they have, Margaret laughed and said, "I've got a memory but I'm not going to..." she trails off, spying her beloved's sly grin out of the corner of her eye. "Don't you dare put that in."
Together they laugh. He chuckles even more deeply.
"Everybody in town knows it," he counsels.
Unceremoniously, she launches into the story.
"I got stuck in the mud. I was helping him farm. My tractor drowned in this terrible rain and I had to quit (now, don't write this in there, though, she protests). And he was working in my father's farm, helping and he came down this lane from the north and I was going across this plowed field. I had to walk because my tractor drowned out. And here I was walking in this mud up to my knees, and such a mess," she said.
"And he comes down on his tractor. He was quite a ways from me. He could have stopped and slowed down so I could ride on it with him."
After all, she was helping him in the fields. The rain was pouring down and she was in it past her ankles, sinking fast. Her tractor had given up the ghost and she was facing a long, gloppy hard walk back to the barn when she turned to see her husband approaching on another tractor.
Relieved, she waved him down.
Never slowing, he waved right back.
Indeed, he sailed past her in the soupy, sticky mud and her hopes sank almost as fast as the mud climbed higher to her knees.
Recovering quickly, she did the only thing she could do. She got mad at Orville.
She wanted him more than ever, and oh, the things she would do when she got him.
Her knight in shining John Deere had failed her and she couldn't fathom why.
And he just waved and went on in."
Did he not realize what was going on?
When asked about this, she immediately looks at him as his eyes twinkle back at hers. She knows him - and she knows what he is thinking.
But not that day.
Later, and at each telling, he explained his reasoning to her. It was her father's tractor and it was due back that afternoon. He had to keep his momentum because, had he stopped, they would have both been sunk in the mud.
"If I'd have stopped, then we'd both walked," he said.
And what good would he have been to her then?
She understood, but now asks the interviewer, "Wouldn't you be mad? It's the only time I've ever been really mad at Orville," she pauses, recalling. "I was really mad."
But she gave up her anger and today she smiles. Farmers and farmer's wives are just as practical as bankers, After all.
She even told the story on herself at a party.
She doesn't want people to think she is putting on airs.
"I'm no better than anybody else," she said. "I'm not trying to tell people how to live. I don't want people to think we're bragging about everything."
But she is sincere when she speaks the truth.
"It's been wonderful," said Margaret. "We've led a very happy life."
