Eileen & Bill Mueller: ‘She had me marked before I even asked’

The secret to a lasting marriage is simple, according to Bill Mueller.

Express your love.

“I don’t think a day goes by that we don’t get up in the morning and say we love each other,” the longtime Lombard village president said. “Love for each other is the big thing. You have to share it all the time.”

Bill and Eileen Mueller married more than 50 years ago, on Aug. 27, 1960. While Bill Mueller popped the question, he said he later learned he might’ve had little say in the matter.

“She says she had me marked before I even asked her,” Mueller, 75, said with a chuckle. “She tells me she was looking for a handsome man who was tall and a Catholic. Back then, I never knew all that.”

Depending on who you ask, the Muellers either met at a party or the former Ball and Pin bowling alley in Lombard, where Bill Mueller was tending bar.

The couple dated about 10 months before he worked up the courage to ask her father for her hand.

Mueller, who was also working for ComEd at the time, said he saved up and bought a ring he thought would fit Eileen’s taste before proposing one night over dinner. It’s been too long to remember where.

They later married at St. Celestine Church in Elmwood Park, where Eileen Mueller grew up, and went on to have two daughters and, eventually, four grandchildren.

For the first 49 years of marriage, Bill Mueller said he presented his wife on their anniversary with one red rose for every year together.

When the 50th anniversary arrived last year, he gave her 50 yellow roses and a dozen red.

“When I started this tradition, I never thought of what I’d do when we got to 50 years,” he said. “Now I’ve got to start all over.”

Mueller said he often reflects on their wedding vows and holds them dearly.

“We’re not rich and we’re not poor, but you go through times in your marriage and raising a family when you wonder where your next dollar’s coming from,” he said.

“I’ve also been through a lot of sickness, with four bouts of cancer. A lot of people would run away from someone who’s so sick all the time, but she stood by my side. We love each other dearly.”