They've been through heaven and hell, but you'd never guess it by looking at them. 
If Lloyd's actual age isn't visible, it gets revealed in conversation about farming with a horse and one-bottom plow.  If Susie's ready smile isn't visible, it percolates just below the surface, about to emerge again at the slightest provocation.
Lloyd and Susie Bonkoski of Victoria found each other later in life, after they each had been married to someone else and raised several children between them.  Lloyd's first wife died of cancer.  Susie's first husband was killed in a tractor accident.
Those tragedies are only the tip of the iceberg in their personal ocean of waves and ruffled weather, yet the couple's outlook is transcendent.  Their spirit is indomitable.  They speak of the past with bright eyes, not dim shadows.  Even the occasional tear falls from bright eyes.
They speak with enthusiasm and confidence at the prospects for a long and peaceful future, yet the couple's days currently aren't long enough to get all the work done and all the fishing and wood-working in.  They live each day complete-ly and entirely from sunup to sundown.  In other words, Lloyd and Susie Bonkoski live with extraordinary heart and soul.

Lloyd was born at St. James, Minnesota, on June 11^th, 1921, the third of ten children.  Arthur and Lydia Bonkoski were farmers who even hauled the family to a dairy farm near Elgin, Illinois, for a short time to keep the family fed and clothed.  Lloyd has visions of that trip.  He was five years old at the time.
Back home at St. James, the kids worked with the parents.  "We milked cows and had pigs and feeder cattle," said Lloyd.  "I never went to high school.  I learned more working out than I ever would have in high school."
In 1939, about the time he might have graduated from high school, Lloyd took off for Chicago and "worked out" for a couple of years on a farm.  While he was there, his boss signed him up for the State Corn Husking Contest.  "He knew that's what I did back home on the farm, and I told him I was good at it," stated Lloyd. 
"That was in 1941," he continued.  "I was the Corn Husking Champion that year."
How many ears did he pick?  "They didn't count the ears," said Lloyd.  "They weighed the wagons before and after.  Horses pulled the wagon and I walked along and picked two rows at a time.  I had 46 bushels in one hour and twenty minutes."
What was the grand prize?  "I got a bushel of seed corn," laughed Lloyd.  "It was worth about $15 then.  My boss vol-unteered to pay me for it."
In 1942 he was drafted into the U.S. Army and in January of 1943 he was off to war.  "I went from England to France to Germany," he said.  "We serviced the engines on steam locomotives.  I was a machinist.  They taught us at Little Rock, Arkansas, how to do that before we went overseas.  The locomotives transported ammunition and food to the soldiers.  We had ten to twelve trains going out of a seaport in France over to the front."
Memories from those challenging and emotionally charged times flooded into Lloyd's conversation …
"D-day was June 6^th, 1944.  I landed on that same beach, Normandy Beach, on June 12^th.  Wherever you looked, as far as you could see, there were ships that were sunk.  Shafts were sticking out all over the place.  By then they had pretty well cleared out all the bodies.  We could hear the Germans shooting 88's overhead.  That's a German cannon.  Then when the war was over, we had to stay in Germany for another six months and help them put things back in order."
"Don't know why I'm talking about this," said Lloyd, as he folded his handkerchief and put it back into his pocket.  "I hardly ever talk about the War."
In December of 1945, when his three-year tour of duty was finished, it was back to St. James, Minnesota, where he got married and began a family that grew to seven children.  How Lloyd supported them over the next decades is as interesting as his ability to recall the line-up of jobs.
The first four years he spent farming at St. James.  "I picked corn one time by hand for 59 days in a row, from sunup to sundown," he said.  "People don't believe it, but it's true."  And then he went to work on the railroad for a year as a fireman.
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