PEKIN — Joseph Yock asked two other nurses at Pekin Hospital for a date before he approached Minnie Rinderknecht. She said, “OK, even if I am your third choice.”

As it turns out, the third time was a charm for Joe, who made Minnie his bride on Sept. 2, 1939.

He made just one mistake, however. An insurance agent for Prudential, Joe had sold Minnie a 20-year endowment policy.

“I married her, so I had to pay the premiums,” he said with a quick laugh.
That lapse in judgment aside, he developed a winning equation when it came to building their life together: “I put God first, Minnie second and work third.”

Father Tim Nolan, their pastor at St. Joseph’s Parish, helped them celebrate 70 years of doing just that with a Mass in their cozy duplex last Saturday. He blessed each of them before the liturgy ended and a light breakfast began for their extended family and friends.

DURING HIS homily, Father Nolan said the couple had weathered the good times and the bad by holding on to each other and Jesus.

“They did not allow the hard times to drive them apart,” he said, noting that their example was a gift from God.

Perhaps the most important lesson they taught was that “love is not something we get, but something we give,” Father Nolan said.

Dan Campbell, their nephew and godson, agreed.

“They lived their faith,” he said simply. “Uncle Joe’s participation in the church as a trustee, in Catholic Charities and as a volunteer was an excellent role model for me. Their example said to me, ‘This is what faith is all about.'”

Born in Atkins, Iowa, on Sept. 17, 1912, Minnie attended Mount Mercy School of Nursing in Cedar Rapids. She worked as a private duty nurse, putting in as many as 20 hours a day.

When a friend and classmate told her of an opening at Pekin Hospital, she applied and got the job. She worked in surgery and in maternity for one year before starting a 41-year career as the head nurse in a Pekin doctor’s office.

To bring in extra money she would help with home deliveries, for which she was paid $2. Joe remembers that several dates were interrupted by this work.

While Joe was a “cradle Catholic,” Minnie was raised as a Lutheran. She decided to take instruction when she noticed that Catholics in crisis at the hospital would pray together and was received into the Catholic Church before she married Joe.

Joe, who will be 97 in January, served in the U.S. Army as a radar operator on Fiji and Guadalcanal during World War II. When he returned, he went to work for Prudential. After 35 years with the company he retired at the age of 56 to spend more time with Minnie.

That’s when he got involved with Catholic Social Services, now Catholic Charities. He was on the board for two six-year terms and “enjoyed all of it.”

Also a Third and Fourth Degree member of the Knights of Columbus, Joe was a trustee at St. Joseph’s Parish for 35 years. He received the Pere Marquette Award from the Diocese of Peoria in 1999 recognizing his outstanding service to the church.