A twist of fate brought Jim and Joan Watson together. All because Joan decided to apply for a flight attendant job.
“I’m very impulsive. I was working in Seattle at the First National Bank and I saw an ad in the paper that they were interviewing for TWA,” says Joan, an independent living apartment resident at Good Samaritan Society – Meadowstone in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. “I thought, ‘I’ll go over there during lunchtime,’ and I didn’t tell anyone. They interviewed me and then asked me to come back a couple days later and I was hired.”
Because TWA didn’t fly to Seattle, her new job required her to move to Boston. After a few years, she and her roommates, who were also TWA flight attendants, decided Kansas City would be a better fit. Kansas City was the headquarters for TWA at the time.
There, Joan became good friends with a fellow flight attendant who was from Sioux Falls.
“That’s how it all started,” says Joan. “The friend said, ‘Just come home with me sometime.’ And then I met Jim and we started writing letters.”
Letters, then wedding bells
The first letter Jim wrote was on Dec. 9, 1961. Joan kept each one he wrote and saved them in a binder. Paging through them, she’s reminded of their whirlwind romance.
Joan Watson holding her binder of letters from her husband.
“He was in the South Dakota Air National Guard and he’d go to the guard for the weekend and tell me about that. I would tell him where I was flying,” Joan says.
They tried to visit each other in person as much as possible.
“Sometimes I could get a flight half price and other times he would drive to Kansas City,” says Joan.
The couple got engaged and, six months after meeting, they were married on June 1, 1962, in Seattle. Joan’s family met Jim for the first time two days before the ceremony.
“We would’ve killed our kids if they had done that,” Joan says. “We had a very small wedding. Jim had younger brothers and sisters, and they weren't in school, but they all had poison ivy or something and couldn’t come, so Jim and his best man drove to Seattle. Neither one had been west of Rapid City.”
The Seattle World’s Fair was going on, and as part of their honeymoon, Jim and Joan visited the fair – seeing sights like the brand new Space Needle.
“Our best man had to drive home alone. Then Jim and I flew back with a stop in San Francisco,” says Joan.
A sweet life together
After their wedding, the Watsons settled in Sioux Falls while Jim finished college. Then they moved to Wisconsin where they raised two sons and Jim taught special education.
“We lived between Milwaukee and Chicago. It was really good because the boys were into sports and we could go to all the games. When we retired, we came back to Sioux Falls,” Joan says.
They spent a lot of time together and did a lot of volunteering. Joan had a craft room where she made cross-stitch creations.
“I have to keep busy. I’m a busy kind,” says Joan.
The couple had a good routine in their retirement. Jim took care of cleaning the downstairs and washing their clothes while Joan kept the upstairs clean.
“I wasn’t going to let him just sit there,” Joan laughs.
Unfortunately, Jim started having health issues that led to a series of falls. Joan wasn’t able to lift him and had to call 911 each time. They eventually sold their home and moved to an independent living apartment in Sioux Falls in 2018.
Jim developed Alzheimer’s disease and Joan and the family decided memory care would be helpful for him. He moved to Good Samaritan Society – Sioux Falls Village in 2022. Joan was able to get an apartment at the Meadowstone independent living building on campus in 2024.
Faithfully by his side
Part of her daily routine includes visiting Jim, who is now receiving hospice care at Sioux Falls Village.
“I can just walk over. It takes me four minutes to get to his room, so it’s really handy. I go at about 10 a.m. and stay through lunch,” says Joan. “He knows I’m coming and he waits for me. He still knows me and he knows our kids.”
She is thankful to spend time with Jim. They watch TV together and she helps feed him his lunch and helps brush his teeth.
“I have to be with Jim. A lot of people’s situations are different, but I have to be there. I’m not doing anything at my apartment, so I might as well be over there,” Joan says. “Good Sam’s been really good with him. He’s comfortable and that’s all that matters, really. He is not in any pain.”
Active and content
When Joan isn’t with Jim, she spends time doing paperwork, household chores and exercising in the nearby fitness room.
“They have a lot of books you can read and they’ve got things for you to do. I start doing a puzzle, but then I can’t leave it alone,” says Joan.
She likes having a noon meal available to her after she returns from visiting Jim and sticks it in the fridge to heat for dinner.
Her quiet, two-bedroom apartment gives her the space to relax and spend time doing whatever she wants.
“It’s very comfortable. I love having the washer, dryer and dishwasher. They vacuum, dust and clean the bathroom,” Joan says.
A lifetime of love
Joan is dedicated to Jim no matter what he’s going through, but chuckles when asked what her secrets are for a long marriage.
“How can I give advice when I barely knew the guy when we got married? I just said, ‘I hope it works,’” laughs Joan.
But their decades together show they must know a thing or two about making a marriage work.
“Stay healthy and help each other. He was so good to me and I was good to him. When I had major surgery, he put up with a lot because I was a bear. You just need to listen to each other and know each other well enough to know what to say and how to say it. How you say things really matters. We’ve been through a lot of stuff and we always come through. Faith helps a lot,” Joan says.
As for their love letters, Joan displays the binder in the entryway of her apartment.
“We have a lot of letters in there. I didn’t know I was going to keep them,” says Joan.
They’re a testament to Jim and Joan’s love story.
