Photo courtesy of Carlene Koopman Taylor Twila and Elmer Koopman of Ivanhoe posed by a life-size version of their wedding portrait, during an open house celebration for their 70th anniversary. The couple were married on March 12, 1955, in Quinn, South Dakota.

IVANHOE — Elmer and Twila Koopman said it was a love of dancing that first helped bring them together. But in the more than 70 years since they first met, they’ve also run a dairy farm near Ivanhoe, raised a family and a lot more.

“We’ve been very lucky,” Twila Koopman said. The Koopmans celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary on Saturday, with an open house celebration in Ivanhoe.

“We want to try and have a few more anniversaries,” Elmer Koopman said.

Elmer is 93, and Twila will be 91 in April.

The Koopmans spoke a little about their lives together during the open house. They first met in 1953, in Quinn, South Dakota.

“Elmer was stationed at the Air Force base in Rapid City, and I worked in Quinn at the hospital,” Twila said. “We all ended up at my parents’ house for Thanksgiving.”

When Elmer moved out to Rapid City for his military service, he also learned he had family members in the area. He said it was those relatives who had invited him to join them for Thanksgiving with Twila’s parents, Olaf and Kathryn Tennyson.

It turned out that Elmer and Twila didn’t get much of a chance to spend time together that day. Twila actually had to leave the Thanksgiving gathering early, to help a doctor at the hospital deliver twins.

A couple of weeks later, “We got together and went to a dance,” Elmer said. “We’ve been dancing ever since.”

Elmer proposed to Twila on Christmas eve in 1954. They were married at the Methodist church in Quinn on March 12, 1955. About a year later, they moved to Ivanhoe, where Elmer grew up.

“I wanted to farm, so that’s why we came back,” he said.

According to a family history display at Saturday’s celebration, their first home had no running water and limited electricity. In 1960, the Koopmans moved to a farm site near Ash Lake, about two miles outside Ivanhoe, Elmer said. They started a dairy farm.

For more than 40 years, Elmer farmed more than 500 acres and milked 30 cows twice a day, the family history said. Twila said it was a process that took a lot of work.

“We didn’t have an automatic milker,” she said.

Together, Elmer and Twila raised three children, Randy, Cara and Carlene. Today, Randy lives in Boston, and Cara and Carlene live in Minnesota, they said.

After they retired from farming, the Koopmans still had fun together, traveled, and spent time with family including their grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

“We used to go down to Texas in the winter for a few weeks,” Twila said.

For many years, they went dancing together every week in Brookings, Elmer said.

“It’s just good. The kids are all good to each other,” Twila said of her and Elmer’s life together. They were proud of their children and family, she said.

In addition to working and spending time together, the Koopmans also had a lot to share with their family and community. Elmer worked at the Ivanhoe elevator, volunteered at the Ivanhoe VFW and Bethany Elim Lutheran Church, and served hot dogs during Polish Days, the family history display said. Twila was a seamstress who made clothes for her family, and even dolls for her daughters. She also made homemade applesauce and pies from the apple trees in their yard.

“They are just fantastic, great people,” said Rod Wilson, who was one of the Ivanhoe community members who came out to celebrate the Koopmans’ anniversary. Wilson said he had gotten to know the family partly through teaching the Koopmans’ children in school, and through helping to chop silage together with Elmer for a few years.

“Elmer ran the chopper, and I hauled the silage,” Wilson said.

Family members said a little more than 300 people attended the Koopmans’ open house. The winter storm that blew through southwest Minnesota on Saturday let up just in time for the event.

Family photos and memorabilia along two walls of the Ivanhoe VFW Hall helped tell the story of the Koopmans’ 70 years together. On one table, a replica of the Koopmans’ wedding cake – with the original cake topper – was next to photos from the ceremony and wedding reception. Part of the display included Twila’s wedding dress and Elmer’s suit.

The Koopmans’ daughter Carlene Koopman Taylor said Twila had kept everything very organized. It had been fun for her and her siblings to hear their parents’ stories, she said.

“We feel really blessed to get to this point,” Taylor said of celebrating her parents’ 70th anniversary.

At the same time that the Koopmans were happy to mark their anniversary, they also said they wanted to thank their family.

“They have been very good to us,” Twila said. “We really appreciate it.”