After Lou and Alice Cherbeneau had been married more than 60 years, he was asked the secret to a long marriage.
“Three words,” replied the droll Cherbeneau. “‘I was wrong.”‘
Lou Cherbeneau, cowboy first and city guy second, died July 15 in Longmont, just days before his 100th birthday.
His wife, Alice Cherbeneau, died in April at 96.
A celebration of their lives will be held Aug. 30 at 1:30 p.m. at the Estes Park Museum, 200 4th St., Estes Park.
Cherbeneau was a credit analyst for Dun & Bradstreet and later credit manager for The Denver Post.
On the surface, the Cherbe neaus seemed miles apart, with his cowboy interests and her intellectual and artistic pursuits.
But they both loved the outdoors, and she climbed all the peaks in Colorado above 14,000 feet and learned to ride horses and help her husband fix fences, build roads and dig wells. Both were avid conservationists.
He played the drums in bands to help get himself through college, and she played the piano.
Alice Cherbeneau often remarked that she thought she was marrying a businessman, “not a cowboy.”
Beginning in the 1940s, he began making saddles and other cowboy gear, such as chaps, belts and billfolds.
Lou Cherbeneau loved Western and Southwestern history, Western movies, camping out and being on the family ranch near Estes.
He rode as recently as a year ago, said his grandson, Allyn McMullin of Loveland, who manages the family ranch.
Alice Cherbeneau made sure her daughters learned toe, tap and ballet dancing, and she spent hundreds of hours making their fancy outfits for recitals.
She loved to travel and did so through much of the world. Not so her husband. After he’d seen some slides of Australia, he said, “Well, I’ve seen enough of Australia.”
The daughters followed their mother’s interests.
“We were like two hothouse flowers,” said Jeanne Cherbe neau of La Jolla, Calif.
“Our idea of roughing it is a Motel 6,” said her sister, Neva McMullin of Woodland Park.
Louis Ambroise Cherbeneau was born Aug. 31, 1907, in Ridgway and earned his bachelor’s in business administration at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Alice Ford was born Aug. 30, 1910, in Washington, D.C., and moved to Wyoming with her family.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology, with minors in geology and English, at the University of Wyoming.
She worked at the chancellor’s office at the University of Denver and earned a master’s in communications there.
She was an instructor in basic communications, taught reading improvement, speech and grammar at area schools and co-authored a book on reading competence.
She did ceramics, enamel and stained-glass work, made kachina dolls and was a bird-watcher.
The Cherbeneaus are survived by their daughters, three grandchildren and five great- grandchildren.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at vculver@denverpost.com or 303-954-1223.
