Rufus Cole, Army vet, dancer traveled the world

Rufus Cole craved two things in life — good music and a good woman.

He found the latter in Mary Jane Cole. He married her when she was 16. They’d been together since — 68 years.

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Rufus L. Cole Jr. grew up in Laurens, S.C., where his father oversaw a large farm. He and his wife, Mary Jane Cole, who was 16 when she wed him, were married for 68 years.

The major works of the Glenn Miller Orchestra, Tommy Dorsey and the Duke satisfied his musical sense. The couple loved to dance, relatives say, and won several contests back in the day.

“They grew up in the era of big band music, so that was always playing around the house,” said a son, Tim Cole of Virginia Beach, Va. “They might dance around the kitchen or the family room. But before my time, the ’40s and ’50s, they would go out dancing with friends and stuff.”

Mr. Cole grew up in Laurens, S.C., where his father oversaw a large farm. Life was hard. The Coles had no indoor plumbing. The young Mr. Cole fetched water for the field hands who picked and hoed cotton. They called him “Water Jack.” Laborers lived on the farm; the children of the cotton-pickers were his friends, his son said.

“One of his fondest memories was riding a horse on that farm,” he said. “It was a hardscrabble life.”

Rufus Lafayette Cole Jr., 90, of Decatur died Friday from complications of kidney surgery at Emory University Hospital Midtown, formerly Emory Crawford Long Hospital. The memorial service is 11 a.m. Wednesday in the chapel of McDonald and Son Funeral Home & Crematory in Cumming. The family will receive visitors an hour before the service.

Mr. Cole served with the Army artillery division during World War II. He was stationed in Japan when the Allies occupied that country. He also served in the Korean War. When he retired from the Army in 1962, the family moved from Colorado Springs, Colo., to Decatur. He worked briefly in the circulation department for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and for decades as a manager for Aaron Rents on Buford Highway.

In their later years, the Coles traveled the globe with their daughter, Judy McIntire of Cumming. She’s a retired Delta ticket agent who took her parents to Germany, England, Arizona and elsewhere.

“They were so much fun to be with,” she said. “My father was like a father or older brother to my husband. My husband adored him.”

Because of her parents, Mrs. McIntire said she couldn’t imagine being married to someone who didn’t enjoy dancing.

“That was their No. 1 love,” she said. “Being in the military, there were always dances and stuff. They didn’t drink, but they didn’t miss a cocktail party because of the music. When [Mr. Cole] was asked what one thing he wished he would have done, he said he wished he’d learned how to buck dance.”

Additional survivors include another daughter, Lynn Pedersen of Cumming; two other sons, David Cole of Marietta and Todd Cole of Byron; two sisters, Betty Gardner of Pelzer, S.C., and Lilly Mae Garrett of Spartanburg, S.C.; 12 grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.