A Love That Lasts a Lifetime: Grant & Caroline Dotts

“I won him on a bet,” Caroline Dotts divulged when asked how she and her husband came to be married. She narrated the story of their meeting and rapid courtship, detailing that it began when she went to a dance with a friend. Dotts declared, “Grant walked in, and he was the most handsome thing that I’d ever laid eyes on. I said, ‘Oh he’s so good looking.’ And my friend said, ‘Bet you can’t get a dance with him.’ Twenty-fivecents back then, 73 years ago was a lot. So, I walked over and accidentally fell in his arms and pretty soon, we danced and danced and danced. So, she said, ‘Let me get my money back – 25 cents that you can’t get a date with him.’ Well, when I went home that night, I had a date with him. Two weeks later, I skipped school and went to Canada with him. Coming back along the river, he said, ‘What would you say if I asked you to marry me?’ And I said, ‘I don't know.’ He said, ‘Will you marry me?’ And I said, ‘Yes,’ and he put a diamond ring on my finger.” Dotts shared that within one month and five days, they were married. “It was kind of fun because we’ve had a good life. I didn’t get any of that 50 cents until 20 years later, and it was worth $3.83 then,” she said.

When asked if her friend was still around who had accompanied her to the dance and gambled about her prospects with Grant, she replied, “No, most all of my friends are dead. There’s only a couple of us that are still alive, because, see, I am 91 and he is 92.”

Grant Dotts confirmed, “I was born in 1933 and she was born in ’35.” He currently resides at Colville Heath and Rehabilitation of Cascadia, and Caroline lives less than a mile away in their Colville home. She visits him daily from around 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. “Once in a while, he will ask me to go home earlier, because he knows I am tired. So, he looks after me too. He’s only been in here about a year-and-a-half,” she said.

Grant chronicled, “I was born in the old Mt. Carmel Hospital in 1933. My family had a little farm up in Bossburg and my dad was a mail carrier. My mom was a homemaker. I had three brothers: Gaylord, Argon, and Monty. I was third in command, with two older and one younger. I went to school at the old Marcus School and graduated in 1950.” He said that he and Caroline married in 1952, stating, “We’ve been married 73 years, going on 74.” Caroline said their anniversary is June 8, and Grant added, “On Argon’s birthday.”

She continued, “I was 17 when we ran away and got married,” and Grant added, “We went to good ol’ Coeur d’Alene and were married in 1952. I did logging and worked in mines; in a period of eight years, we had four children. Three boys and a girl: Grant Jr, Steven, Harry Joe, and Marilyn.”

When asked if they ran away to marry because they were concerned that their parents wouldn’t be supportive, Caroline offered, “Oh, they didn’t miss me anyway. When we went and came back, nobody even knew we were married. But then they found out because the officiator called and said, “I married your daughter. She was only 17; I am sorry.’ My dad said, ‘Oh, glad to get rid of her,’ and he meant it.”

She explained, “Some real bad things happened in that family. My mother was only five years old when her dad shot her mother, and she was sitting holding her when she died. It was in the paper all those years ago; it was a horrible thing and I felt sorry for her. She had a really tough life; I think that’s why she was the way she was. They had my brother, my sister, then they lost a baby, and then I came along, and I think that’s why I wasn’t wanted as much.” Caroline shared, “But God’s been very good to me, I got to take care of my folks. I was with Daddy when he passed away and mom.” She said, “He [Grant] is the last in his family and I am the last in my family. There’s nobody left. All of my brothers and sisters are gone.” Adding an anecdote about her birth in Colville, she said, “I was born in the Safeway parking lot – My aunt had a house right there and I was born at her house.”

She recounted their early life together, “When we got married, we moved to Evans to a little one-room cabin that was about the length of this bed (she motioned to the Grant’s bed at Cascadia)  We were there for a while, then we moved to Northport, then to Inchelium, then to Colville, and then he wanted to go to Oregon. He went there for a little while, and then he decided to go to California. So, we went to the Redwoods to join him and we enjoyed that. He drove trucks mainly then.” Grant added, “I drove trucks in the woods, skidding logs. I had my own logging truck, and later, a truck that I drove beer with.”

She summarized their moves with, “Next we went to Wyoming. He wanted me to drive with him, and they wouldn’t let him, so he quit and we came back to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. We were there for quite awhile, later returning to Colville. Then he started driving a truck from Colville to California bringing beer back and forth, so that’s where we’ve been. I just followed him around. We had a good time, didn’t we?” Caroline asked Grant, and he agreed, smiling.

“We’ve had a lot of fun over the years; Grant has done a wonderful lot of things for a lot of people. He started a little league at the Eagles for kids and they’ve played ball ever since. He’d come drop his [logging] truck off and run up there and be the umpire. In fact, one of the guys who works here [at Cascadia] caught us in the hall and he said, ‘Boy Grant, can I get after you? You told me I was out, and I didn’t think I was.’” 

She remarked, “And our family grew, and I now have six great-great-grandchildren. One of them was born in my home in the basement. I made an apartment; I like to build houses. So, I remodeled everything and that was fun. I built this house here in Colville; it really turned out nice.” She described the basement apartment she built and rented out at her house and the tenants over the years. “The last one I rented to was my great-granddaughter, so I had the great-great-grandson and great-great-granddaughter born in the basement apartment.” Grant echoed that Colville was “home” and Caroline said, “There’s just a lot of nice people here.” 

When asked which was her favorite place to live, she said, “I didn’t care; I met a lot of people and I’ve done a lot. I got to work at the Gamble store; they wanted me to open the store in Sandpoint, but I didn’t do it. It was about time for me to retire, but I had a lot of fun doing that. And I worked at Holland’s Nursing Home for about three years, now it’s Buena Vista. When he [Grant] was sick, I worked; we traded back and forth. He had a few hardships and sicknesses and I had cancer twice – once on my thyroid and I had pancreas cancer five or six years ago.”

When asked what they attributed their longevity and health to, Grant said, “Hard work.”  

Caroline echoed his sentiments with, “We did work hard.” Grant emphasized, “We didn’t have nothing handed to us. People with the money today, they don’t have to work. They just lay back, but we had to work for every penny we have.”

Caroline shared about her construction abilities, “I’ve been building and remodeling; I was born and raised on a ranch, so I can do that. I can’t cook though,” she admitted. She told a story of an instance when she remolded a shed into a garage, so she could park her car in there. “He came home and he said, ‘I don’t like it.’ And so when he came home the next night, it was torn down. I tore it down; he didn’t like it, we didn’t need it. I was kind of a feisty little thing,” she confessed.

Caroline also talked about their recreation activities, “He liked to fish and hunt. When I had the children, I couldn’t go. With the last house I built, I had enough money left over that I bought him a $20,000 boat. He and his friend went out three or four days a week.” Grant recalled fun times fishing at Deer Lake especially, while Caroline said she made quilts for fun. She explained, “I made 35-40 quilts a year, for over 40 years. I never charged for any of them, donated them to the Tree of Sharing and other organizations. This last year was the first time I have not been able to make that many quilts, because I am over here all the time. And I don’t have to buy the material.” She described how people leave material on her back porch or buy her batting to support her quilt-making efforts. She also said that she’s given material away to churches that she isn’t using. She said her children do not share her same love of quilting, noting, “No, they just like to take mine. I’ve made a quilt for all of my kids, including the 10 grandchildren. One of them – a boy who likes to hunt – killed a three-legged bear, so I made a three legged bear on his quilt. Another liked to ride horses, so I made horses coming up out of the valley. And, I just do real fun ones and give them away.”

She also paints pictures that are displayed in her home and shop. One in particular she showcased was of a former home in the foreground, with her depiction of God’s face in the sky above looking out over the valley. She rendered their spiritual life with, “We go to the Free Methodist Church. We went to the Lutheran church for a while. When [Grant] came home [from driving the truck], he wasn’t going to church that much…I said, ‘Well, Grant, from here on out, I’m going to church every Sunday. You can do whatever you want; you can go fishing, but I am going to church.’ And I went in the bedroom and when I came back out, he was sitting there with his coat on, ready to go. We went every Sunday, and he never missed a day, until just lately. I can’t take him in the car to go over there very easily; I can’t do it by myself anymore.”

They recounted how they have hosted family and friends at their home over the years, which was “a real joy.” Referencing some of Grant’s friends visiting from California, Caroline expressed, “They were supposed to stay a couple of days, but they were there all week or more. We loved it. In the shop, we’d just put the barbecue out there and the table and chairs, so it became a big dining room.”

They discussed how society has changed over their lifetime, positing that it’s due to people living so fast now. Caroline added, “And they’re out for the ‘Almighty Dollar.’ Grant and I weren’t. I babysat kids; I had my four and I would have eight other kids every day. I would just make them biscuits, peanut butter sandwiches, and Kool-Aid, and I never charged them anything. Because the parents needed to work to make a living. So, Grant and I did things like that a lot, and I feel really good about it.”

Grant related,“A lot of people wonder how we did it? We were strong-minded and we grew up the old-fashioned way. It was a lot different 50-to-70 years ago. We never had the drugs, like people today have.” Caroline contributed, ”Well, he also didn’t get after me, because I am pretty stubborn sometimes. He liked to spend, I liked to save.He did drink a little bit, but I didn’t care, and I never did. He chewed snus and I smoked one cigarette and never did it again.” Reflecting on advice for young people today, Grant said, “Just work hard, lead a clean life, and you’ll be okay.”

Caroline celebrated her kids stating, “I want my kids to know, I think the best of all of them. They all are different, like night and day. They like golf, pickleball, and one rides horses all the time; they all know we care. They love their dad dearly. I wasn’t going to put him in the nursing home; my kids decided they would.” She described making that decision, “I went out and sat in a field by myself and said, ‘Lord, I got to pray about this, and I’m not going to move until you answer me.’ And He said, ‘Caroline, he’s going into the nursing home.’ It’s probably a good thing, because I get at least a few hours that I can go home and rest. It’s hard, but I have a lot I also need to do at home.”  

Caroline finished with, “And I think he’s happy that I am good to him, and I am happy with him. I mean we had some hard times, but who doesn’t? I just like everything we’ve ever done together. It’s been perfect.”