Thursday, February 17, 2000
Writer lives his love story
BY KAREN SAMPLES
The Cincinnati Enquirer
COVINGTON — Vance Trimble's wife died after 67 years of marriage. Every day, he tries to keep her alive.
It isn't morbid, this desire of his to tell the world about Elzene Miller Trimble. All great romances end eventually, and the living are left to make sense of it. They sell the house, give away the clothes, carry out the wishes, and then they reflect.
Who was this wonderful woman? How can I mark her life?
Mr. Trimble keeps waking up at night with new ideas. He hadn't realized how big a job it would be.
“What I'm doing is to keep my soul happy,” he says. “I think I should try to continue this love story as long as I can.”
He has a gift for stories; at 86, he has eight books and a Pulitzer Prize to his name. From 1963 to '79, he was the fiery editor of the Kentucky Post — a man known as much for his temper as his talent and charm.
Today he is still quick-witted and direct, but mellowed by age. His voice is thin and reedy. It catches sometimes, when he talks about his wife.
They met in high school during the Great Depression.
Elzene Miller was beautiful, genuine, kind and modest. He loved her desperately.
After graduation, he became night editor of a small newspaper in Oklahoma for $20 a week. The couple married immediately. Less than a month later, Mr. Trimble was fired.
His voice catches on the memory of her response.
“She was loyal, supportive and tender,” he says. “She'd just put her arms around me and tell me things would be all right, and they were.”
He is amazed that he hasn't cried since her death.
Then again, he has been busy.
In his wife's name, he and their daughter, Carol Nordheimer, donated more than 300 Bibles to Fort Mitchell Baptist Church.
Mrs. Trimble belonged to many Northern Kentucky organizations, and her husband plans to endow a college scholarship for one of them: the Daughters of the American Revo lution.
One of his favorite tributes was a weekend party for 200 of her friends. They came for the fellowship and left with cashmere sweaters, knickknacks and jewelry. The other day, Mr. Trimble saw his wife's fur coat on someone else.
“It just occurs to me that you can extend a life, if you work on it,” he says. “Elzene's not gone to them.”
She was shy and modest but could hold her own with anybody, he says. During World War II, she drove from Houston to San Francisco with their baby daughter, to join Mr. Trimble at his Army posting. She packed a pistol but didn't have to use it.
Mrs. Trimble was an amateur artist, working with ceramics and paints. An avid reader, she also assembled the couple's library of 5,000 books. Near the end of her life, they were donated to a library in Oklahoma, to avoid a 10-cent sale in the garage.
Her husband chuckles at this. Mrs. Trimble had once gone to a sale at the home of a friend, and was appalled to see the departed's underwear among the bargains.
“She didn't want her book treasures trundled off like that, in such an ungracious fashion,” he says.
Mrs. Trimble was 87 when she died on July 5. She had been sick for several years: pituitary tumor, fractured hips, stroke. Toward the end, Mr. Trimble and his daughter had to guess at what she wanted; she couldn't form the words.
“Every time I helped pull her back from the brink, it just meant more misery for her, because there's no way to escape the inevitable,” he says. In the end, to his great relief, she died peacefully.
Now he's selling the couple's home near Devou Park. As soon as possible, Mr. Trimble will leave Kentucky, where he has lived for 36 years.
His wife is buried with her parents in Wewoka, Okla., the town where the couple met.
Mr. Trimble has taken an apartment there, a mile and a quarter from her grave. He doesn't talk to his wife underground — that wouldn't be practical — but he can feel the mingling of their spirits.
“When love is pure and pristine and total, it's a monster. It's a wonderful monster. It's a giant of emotion,” Mr. Trimble says. “I'm awfully glad I experienced it.”
He will be buried at her side.
Karen Samples is Kentucky columnist for The Cincinnati Enquirer. Her column appears Thursdays and Sundays. She can be reached at 578-5584 or by e-mail at ksamples@enquirer.com.
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