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Redwood Falls, Minn. —
John and Barb Sellevold don’t remember the first time they saw each other, but Barb knew one thing for sure: she wouldn’t have dated John at the time.
“He was in first grade and I was in second, and you just didn’t date younger men back then,” Barb said.
Watching the little kids on the elementary school playground in Slayton, the teachers had no idea those two kids would end up married. Neither did those two kids.
“We really didn’t have anything to do with each other,” said Barb last month. “We were in activities together like band and choir. In a small town everyone knows of each other.”
“But she had her group, and I had mine,” said John.
“He was the minister’s kid, and was kind of wild,” Barb added.
After Barb graduated from high school in 1970, the two just-barely-acquaintances went their separate ways, and that was that.
(Note: they did have a near miss in 1977, when John hiked across Europe and passed through Germany while Barb was living there. They somehow managed to not catch each other’s eye.)
Flash forward to 1981. Barb was divorced with a son (Bret), and attending graduate school while working at a mental health center in Copperas Cove, Texas.
“I left Minnesota as soon as I got done with college, and was comfortable living in Texas,” she said, “but I came back for summers in Slayton. One summer, my mom and dad spoke of this wonderful person — very educated, well-travelled....”
John, a biology major when he want to Augustana College, was back living in Slayton, working at a construction firm building bridges for friends — a “one-week” job that eventually turned into 12 years.
One evening in Slayton, Barb saw the wonderful, educated, well-traveled person in a restaurant, and introduced herself.
“Do you remember me?” she asked.
John did, and they talked through the night until it was time for Barb to go home.
They went out a couple times more, then Barb had to return to graduate school in Texas.
Almost immediately, their long-distance phone bills exploded.
“Some months my phone bill was higher than my rent,” Barb said.
In November, John called to mention he was planning on making a trip to Texas for some reason or other, and would Barb arrange to be in at Thanksgiving?
She could.
“We spent the next year and a half seeing each other when we could,” said Barb. Many, many flights and car rides between Copperas Cove and Slayton ensued.
John and Barb Sellevold don’t remember the first time they saw each other, but Barb knew one thing for sure: she wouldn’t have dated John at the time.
“He was in first grade and I was in second, and you just didn’t date younger men back then,” Barb said.
Watching the little kids on the elementary school playground in Slayton, the teachers had no idea those two kids would end up married. Neither did those two kids.
“We really didn’t have anything to do with each other,” said Barb last month. “We were in activities together like band and choir. In a small town everyone knows of each other.”
“But she had her group, and I had mine,” said John.
“He was the minister’s kid, and was kind of wild,” Barb added.
After Barb graduated from high school in 1970, the two just-barely-acquaintances went their separate ways, and that was that.
(Note: they did have a near miss in 1977, when John hiked across Europe and passed through Germany while Barb was living there. They somehow managed to not catch each other’s eye.)
Flash forward to 1981. Barb was divorced with a son (Bret), and attending graduate school while working at a mental health center in Copperas Cove, Texas.
“I left Minnesota as soon as I got done with college, and was comfortable living in Texas,” she said, “but I came back for summers in Slayton. One summer, my mom and dad spoke of this wonderful person — very educated, well-travelled....”
John, a biology major when he want to Augustana College, was back living in Slayton, working at a construction firm building bridges for friends — a “one-week” job that eventually turned into 12 years.
One evening in Slayton, Barb saw the wonderful, educated, well-traveled person in a restaurant, and introduced herself.
“Do you remember me?” she asked.
John did, and they talked through the night until it was time for Barb to go home.
They went out a couple times more, then Barb had to return to graduate school in Texas.
Almost immediately, their long-distance phone bills exploded.
“Some months my phone bill was higher than my rent,” Barb said.
In November, John called to mention he was planning on making a trip to Texas for some reason or other, and would Barb arrange to be in at Thanksgiving?
She could.
“We spent the next year and a half seeing each other when we could,” said Barb. Many, many flights and car rides between Copperas Cove and Slayton ensued.
“The inconvenience of it probably was for the best,” said Barb, “because both of us had time to think and talk. We had to work at it right from the beginning.”
It was during one of Barb’s summer visits to Slayton that she knew John was serious.
“I had a seizure while I was at home,”said Barb. “John took me back to Texas and saw me through it. I kinda knew then he was in it for the long term. It would have been very easy for him to walk away then, especially with me raising a teenaged boy.”
How did the proposal go?
“There wasn’t one,” John said. “At that point, we knew it was going to happen.”
“We just went to a little jewelry store in Slayton and picked out rings. It just sort of happened,” said Barb. “We’ve just sort of slid into a lot of staged in our relationship without it being a big matter.”
That was in June, 1982.
Then she went back to Texas to finish graduate school while John kept working construction in Minnesota. The planning was deliberately kept very casual.
“I truly don’t remember us talking much about wedding plans that year because we didn’t know where we’d be,” said Barb. “If I got a job in Minnesota, then I would move here. If I didn’t, then John was going to move to Texas.”
One thing they did know for sure was who was going to perform the ceremony. John’s father was an interim pastor in Kalispell, Montana at that point, and the date — July 16, 1983 — had to be set for whenever he could get back to Slayton for a few days.
Then Barb got a position setting up an EBD program at the Redwood Falls school district, the wedding was set for Slayton, and the real planning could begin.
“We had about six weeks to send out the invitations,” said Barb. “We wanted a small wedding because it was my second. Originally we planned to invite about 50 people, but John knows everyone is Slayton. People kept walking up to us and saying, ‘Oh, I just know the wedding is going to be such fun!’ And then we’d have to invite them. We ended up inviting about 300 people. We had to order more invitations two more times.”
The ceremony was held at Grace Lutheran Church, where John’s father had been pastor for 24 years.
“We were all waiting around before the ceremony,” said Barb. “There was some question about whether John would show up. I finally called his mother up at the pastor’s house to ask, and his mom said not to worry, he was in the shower.”
When the big day arrived, one potential disaster turned into a pleasant surprise.
“One of my co-workers said he wanted to sing at our wedding,” said John. “I said, ‘Sure!’”
Then the regrets hit. No one knew of any evidence the guy could actually sing.
“He showed up in a beautiful white suit, and looked fabulous,” said Barb. “He sang an Elvis song, ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love,’ and did a great job.”
“I don’t know if he’d every sung a song in his life before, or since,” laughed John.
Naturally, it was over 100 degrees on the big day, and the church had no air conditioning. The reception dinner was held downstairs at the church, then everyone raced to the Royal Supper Club, which was air conditioned.
“Barb and I were the last ones to get to the dance because we were cleaning up the church,” said John.
After the dance they spent Saturday night in a hotel in Slayton, spent Sunday at the pastor’s house opening gifts, and on Monday — John started another construction job in Thief River Falls, while Barb and Bret left for Texas to rent a U-Haul trailer and cart their stuff up to Redwood Falls.
“From the day we were married we sent separate directions. For our first 15 years we were rarely in the same place because of our jobs,” Barb said. “The ironic thing was once he was in Texas for seven months on a construction project, and I had to go visit him there.”
“That absence made me go back to school and get an accounting degree,” said John. He spent several years as a public accountant in Slayton, then in 1998 got a position with the Redwood Valley school district. Today their offices are just a hallway and staircase away from each other.
“We waited 25 years for a honeymoon,” Barb said of the Alaskan cruise they finally went on last year.
Do they have any advice for couples considering marriage?
“Don’t forget birthdays and anniversaries!” said John. “For years she preached that at me. Then six or seven years after we were married she forgot my birthday. I didn’t say anything, then five minutes after midnight she suddenly sat up in bed, said, “It was your birthday!” and started crying.”
“I’m a counselor, so of course I have advice,” said Barb. “Communicate, and have fun.
"Always remember that a marriage is not a business contract. It's not predictable, negotiable, or logical — it's heart stuff."
