McIntyres found love in the lab

By CONSTANCE SEE - Whitefish Pilot

Winogene and Bruce McIntyre recall how they first met working in a university lab.

She remembers their eyes meeting while dissecting a cadaver's abdomen during an anatomy class at the University of Washington. She was a student. He was a lab instructor.

"Bruce kept asking if he could help me study," Jean said. "That's how it started. I was dating five other men, but he kept weeding them out. We studied together all the time."

Bruce was attracted to Wino-gene's sharp intellect.

"She'd rather feed her head than her stomach," he said. "We can talk about anything."

The seeds of their love bloomed, first in Washington state, then in Washington, D.C., as Winogene completed a master's in biochemistry and became a university teacher, and Bruce finished his doctorate in medicine and completed his internship at Georgetown University.

"When we got to D.C., we were heavily in debt, thousands of dollars, but in a romantic gesture, he bought me a baby grand piano," Winogene said.

Two years after they met, they married on Oct. 10, 1943. They honeymooned on the Olympic Peninsula in Wash., where they were awakened in the morning by an angry bear scratching at their cabin door.

After Bruce's graduation from medical school, the couple returned to his hometown in St. John, Wash. He took over his father's medical practice, working on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The years flew by as their lives were consumed with patients' needs and keeping up with new developments in their fields.

"We worked so hard, we didn't have time for romance," Bruce said.

At one point, Winogene's brother Chester complained they were becoming boring and needed to have fun. Chester tempted them to attend a medical conference that included skiing on Big Mountain. The trip changed their lives.

The McIntyres relocated to Whitefish, where they became very involved in the community and raising their son Curt. Bruce was crowned King Ullr VI, the singing Carnival king, and Winogene was named First Lady of Whitefish. Both became very active with the Red Cross.

The McIntyres bought a plane and both learned to fly. They experienced several close calls together, including two engine failures and a lost prop, but they landed safely each time.

The couple hasn't been so fortunate in the last few years. Both were injured in an automobile accident in 2004. Winogene broke her neck, and Bruce suffered a herniated disc. Exactly one year later, Bruce was in a bicycle accident and fractured his left hip.

With more time on their hands these days, the McIntyres are recovering from their injuries and enjoying time with Curt, who became a professional pilot, their daughter-in-law Janet and grandchildren Ryker and Tori.

"We were kept so busy with our careers, we were married 40 years before we had time just to be together," Winogene said. "We've been together 63 years now and have so much in common, we're like one person."