By Laura Mazur
Community Post
Living a good life. That's what everyone strives to do.
Maurice and Viola Bornhorst never strove to do it, though, they just did it.

“We've had as nice of a life as anybody could possibly have,” says Maurice, 78, who lives at Heritage Manor Nursing Center, in Minster, with his wife.
“God was very good to us,” agrees Viola with a smile.
The couple met when Viola was actually dating a friend of Maurice's. One night, the friend had a date with a different girl, taking her to Kemper's Grove Dance Hall, in Egypt. And he wanted Maurice to find a date and go on a double date with him. The friend suggested that he ask Viola.
And Viola said yes. Why?
“He was handsome,” she explained.
On the other hand, Maurice explains the story with a chuckle as, “She kept flirting with me.”
So the two started dating, both 18 at the time. He was from Egypt. She was from St. Patrick.
They got engaged on Flag Day.
“We were driving down the road and I said, 'I've got a present for you in the glove compartment,'” recalls Maurice.
Inside the glove compartment was a diamond ring.
“She made me stop and give her a kiss and then we continued on the way.”
The couple married happily at the age of 21, but only 15 days before Maurice was drafted for the Korean War. They honeymooned in Kentucky for four days, seeing farms raising horses for racing.
“We knew before we were married that I was going to have to leave soon, but I didn't know when exactly,”  said Maurice.
He later saw Viola after basic training when she traveled by plane and train to visit with him while stationed in Seattle, Wash.
“I wanted to be with you,” she said to him, reaching for his hand. “I got a job quick, otherwise I was crying all day.”
Maurice said, “I wrote a letter home every day. I never missed a day.”
On Nov. 4, the couple will celebrate 58 years of marriage. But their family includes a few more people than just the two of them.
Although the couple was married five years before their first child was born, they soon got on track—to  14 children, including Mike, Sandy Delzeith, Jeanne Niekamp, Bill, Joan Sherman, Mark, Dave, Elaine Huber, Rosemary Schmiesing, Don, Paul, Maurice, Joe and Richard. Taking up more than two pews at church, many people around the area joked that without the Bornhorst family, there was no Egypt.
Maurice said, “She wanted a big family like her mother, I wanted to farm and we both got our wishes.”
Maurice, the son of Paul and Margaret Bornhorst, is one of five children born to his parents. Viola, the daughter of Joe and Henrietta Meyer, is one of 13 children.
The couple lived on Maurice's great-grandfather's farm, who bought the Egypt land in 1845. The couple's son, Bill, now lives on and tends to the farm. Father and son now spend time teasing each other who has farmed the family land better.
Their advice on couples wanting to have large families now?
“I think it's wonderful,” says Viola.
And on the practical side, “Be a farmer,” says Maurice.
Maurice says his wife's sandwiches kept them going strong while at the farm when he would spend the  day milking cows. Viola never milked cows with him, however, because while on her family's dairy farm growing up, the first time she tried milking, she milked so slow, the cow fell asleep. Another time,  Maurice showed her how to drive a tractor. He started it for her, but neglected to tell her how to make it stop, so she kept going around the yard.
“She was a better cook than a farmer,” he admits.
Pineapple upside-down cake and meatloaf were some of her specialties back on the farm.
Maurice himself worked for a few years at I & E, in Minster, which has since relocated to Versailles and changed its name to Midmark, before going full speed into farming.
But the children knew that although their dad was hard at work on the farm each day, they knew they could always find him and spend at least a little bit of time with him when they brought him food or needed something.
The children had many-a-picnic with their mother, though, packing up a card table and chairs in their 1967 Ford station wagon and piling children on top of laps for the travel. On Sundays, the family would head out to play softball at a local field, but with so many children, they had their own teams and never needed anyone else to play with them.
Viola didn't even have a driver's license until after the couple was married, and then she taught herself how to drive, having driven vehicles on her family farm growing up. She later taught all of her 14 children to drive.
Some of the children can remember that every night before the first day of school the Bornhorst family had chicken to celebrate. And then later, all of the children took the day off of school and other obligations to see the youngest, Richard, come home from the hospital after he was born.
As the family grew larger over the years, many family gatherings were moved to banquet halls to accommodate the guest list. But the couple's son recently remodeled the former farmhouse and has made it large enough to have birthday and holiday celebrations back at home. In addition to the couple's 14 children, they also have 53 grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren and another four great-grandchildren on the way.
Now at Heritage Manor, since the two live in the same unit, they can have lunch together and visit with each other when they want to. Maurice also still keeps to a farming frame of mind even at Heritage Manor by subscribing to “Successful Farming” magazine to keep up on trends. Both husband and wife entered Heritage Manor in April 2005 for health reasons, but they are content with the care they receive from staff at the center, showing bright smiles.
“He's wonderful,” says Viola of her husband.
Maurice said, “If I had to do it again, I'd do it all over again. I wouldn't change a thing.”