65 years of love and faith

CENTRAL LAKE — Merilynn Lewis was sitting on a grassy bank with a friend outside of the little church on Old State Road near Finkton Road in Echo Township one lovely spring day when a young man she'd been acquainted with since they were kids stopped by and asked if she'd like to go fishing. 

She would, she said.

"That was it," she laughed last week. "You might say I fell for him hook, line, and sinker."

Last fall Merilynn and that young man, Don Brownell, celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary. 

A graduate of East Jordan High School, Don had been raised on a farm on Old State Road before entering the Army for two years after high school, where he served in Korea. One of Zella and Sam Lewis's daughters, Merilynn was born in a log cabin on Schroeder Road, also in Echo Township, where she was raised with 17 brothers and sisters before graduating from Central Lake High School. 

During the couple's early years of marriage, Don worked at Fisher Body in Detroit, but the couple moved back north to raise their family. 

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