Notons return to honeymoon home

Ron and Mary Lou Noton spent their 50th wedding anniversary in the house they spent their first honeymoon.

After getting married June 22, 1963 in Park Forest, Ill., they traveled to Encampment to spend time in the historic Willis House built in 1908.

The couple can still remember their first experience in the house, which was home to Mary’s grandfather at the time.

“My grandfather had this old refrigerator and he said ‘it kind of smells,’ ” she said. “It turned out everything in the refrigerator was rotten.”

Mary’s grandfather had accidentally unplugged the refrigerator. The couple, during their honeymoon, was tasked with removing the refrigerator.

“Ron and I had to hold our breath and throw it over the porch,” Mary said.

The house has since been the gathering place for Mary, Ron, their three daughters and the rest of the family since the 1960s. The house also marked one of the first places Ron had visited in the west.

“I have never been west of Illinois,” Ron said. “When I came out here, the mountains got into my blood.”

From that point, Ron made a point to climb 48 of the 54 14,000-foot peaks in Colorado.

But before moving to the west, Ron and Mary lived in Chicago, where Ron worked at IBM. After several years of working in Chicago, Ron asked for a transfer to any place in the west, at which point the married couple ended up in Billings, Mont.

The couple has moved around the United States, living in Arizona, Illinois, Montana and other areas. But the couple finally decided to settle in the house they spent their first days as a married couple.

The house was originally built and designed to be a brothel, but because of the copper bust, the business never got off the ground. Mary’s grandfather bought the property in 1931 for $800. The inside of the house was unfinished, so he refinished it. What resulted was a house with five bedrooms upstairs and one bedroom downstairs.

Mary and Ron said they like to walk around the house and imagine what the original developers had in store.

Now, the couple has a name for each of the bedrooms. One of the rooms, the “Doll Room,” is used exclusively to house Mary’s extensive doll collection.

The house has been a huge part of the couple’s lives, Ron said. Ron and Mary plan to spend the rest of their lives in the house.