MUSCATINE, Iowa — Dorothy Washburn is no stranger to hard work — or hard knocks.

And her firm handshake and spunk belie her 81 years.

Washburn also knows a lot about death — some say more than any one person should know. She has buried three husbands and her youngest daughter, Mary, who died in April 2008 of renal cancer at age 56.

She says a lot of people ask her how she was able to go on.

Washburn attributes her get-up-and-go to her faith in God.

 “I tell the Lord every day that I love Him and that I’ll never stop worshipping Him,” Washburn said, lifting her hands and face in praise. “You can’t just sit around and mourn all the time. I knew I had to go on.”

She said reading her Bible and a daily devotional have been part of her nighttime routine for more years than she can remember.

“I don’t know how people get along who don’t know Jesus — who don’t have faith to rely on,” Washburn said.

Washburn, the youngest of five children, calls herself “the surprise baby.” She said her mom told her she thought she was going through “the change” when she actually was pregnant with Dorothy.

Washburn quit school  at age 16 and moved to Muscatine from rural New Boston, Ill. She got a job at Muscatine Pearl Works, one of the local button factories, sometimes juggling it with a waitress job at Maid-Rite.

“I had to pay my part of the rent,” she said.  She and her brother shared an apartment on Sixth Street.

But Washburn was used to  what she calls “slim livin’.” She was familiar with  how to eke out necessities during the Great Depression. She said her mother canned “just about everything she could get her hands on” and Washburn learned to do the same.

It wasn’t long after she moved to Muscatine that Washburn met her first love, Omer Howard, at a dance at the Eagle’s Lodge.

“He wanted to walk me home,” she said, grinning at the memory, “but I told him I could walk by myself.”

Eventually, his persistence won her over and the couple wed on  Feb. 3, 1945.

The romance lasted 37 years and eight months and included the birth of three daughters — until one morning when Howard didn’t feel so great.

After battling a “not-so-good feeling” for about a week, he went to the doctor. He died later that same day  on Oct. 30, 1982, following surgery for an aortic aneurysm.

In 1985, about 2 1/2 years later, Washburn married a retired widower, Richard Brown. Brown had retired from a cement plant near Buffalo.

The marriage lasted only  three years — not because of unhappiness — but because Brown died of the same thing her first husband did, an aortic aneurysm.

She buried him on their third wedding anniversary.

Many people would have crumbled under the weight of sadness, but Washburn said she turned her grief over to God.

Then, Washburn said she contentedly lived a single person’s life for 13 years.

Enter Kenneth Washburn, a 68-year-old who had been married once, but only for about six months before the marriage ended in divorce.

Kenneth spent his work life at Alcoa, but did commercial fishing on the side for many, many years.

But this ol’ fisherman started keeping a close eye on Dorothy,  according to Pastor Mike Bales, who observed the courtship.

While attending services at First Assembly of God and after a few church functions, Dorothy and Kenneth began to visit and keep company with one another.

Bales tells the story this way:

“First, they sat in different locations in the church. Then I noticed Kenneth had moved from one side of the sanctuary to the other. And Dorothy began moving from the back row toward the front.”

But, it gets better.

“After a couple of months, I observed them sitting in the same pew, but at opposite ends,” Bales said. “Week by week, they inched closer to each other. (Someone even spied them holding hands.) A few more weeks and they were in my office asking if I’d counsel them in marriage.”

Bales gladly performed the marriage ceremony for Kenneth and Dorothy … and sadly, the funeral service for Kenneth.

 Kenneth died in September 2007, following a stroke. He spent several weeks at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, where Dorothy sat with him, praying and holding his hand.

 He and Dorothy enjoyed nine years together.

These days, you’ll find Dorothy standing by the First Assembly of God church door before the 10:30 a.m. Sunday service, handing out bulletins and welcoming old-timers and newcomers alike.

“I took over Kenneth’s job as greeter after he died,” she said. “I like the hugs.”

Editor’s note: This story is one in a month-long series the Muscatine Journal is printing in March. The stories will focus on local people, groups and businesses that have overcome economic obstacles and other personal adversity to help make the community better and create better lives for themselves and those around them.