Couples married 50 years feted at event

PAUL COMSTOCK

For The Sun­bury News

At least 4,200 years of mar­riage were rep­re­sented Sat­ur­day at the sec­ond annual Beyond Golden Anniver­sary Cel­e­bra­tion, attended by 84 cou­ples mar­ried at least 50 years.

The sec­ond annual event was held at Wil­low Brook at Delaware Run, spon­sored by Wil­low Brook Chris­t­ian Com­mu­ni­ties, The Delaware Gazette and the Coun­cil for Older Adults.

Hon­ors pre­sented included a Most Life Expe­ri­ence Award based on the com­bined age of hus­band and wife.

The award went to three cou­ples, Ver­ena and Paul Hol­comb, Shirley and James Jack­son, and Mar­jorie and John Rutherford.

The Jack­sons were mar­ried in 1951, when he was 29 years old and she was 28.

They might have been mar­ried ear­lier, they said, but World War II intervened.

James Jack­son was an offi­cer in the Navy and crossed the Atlantic on a destroyer escort. He was trans­ferred to the Pacific and was sched­uled to com­mand a coastal trans­port ves­sel in the inva­sion of Japan.

The nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki led Japan to sur­ren­der before an inva­sion was needed. He went into the reserves and was called to active duty for the Korean War, soon after they married.

Asked for their secret to a long and happy mar­riage, the cou­ple said “respect” almost simultaneously.

“We agree on respect as being the base,” he said. “Right,” she said.

“Hav­ing the same back­ground cer­tainly helps, too,” she said. “We like the same things and enjoy the same things.” They both like to travel, read and play bridge, they said.

When she said “the same back­ground,” she meant that literally.

Their moth­ers were friends who attended the same church in New Jer­sey when Shirley and James were small chil­dren, and they trav­eled side-by-side in baby carriages.

Hap­pi­ness for them hasn’t been a strug­gle, they said. Being happy “was a nat­ural thing, as far as we were con­cerned,” he said.

“We just like each other, as well as love each other,” she said. “We don’t always agree, but we get over it.”

Sta­ble influ­ences also were a fac­tor, she said. Both their par­ents and their grand­par­ents had “very sta­ble fam­i­lies,” she said, as did their sib­lings. “It was just a sta­ble atmos­phere in our homes.”

The Jack­sons have lived in five states and believe mov­ing to Delaware “was the best move we ever made,” she said. Their daugh­ter lives in Delaware and a son lives in Penn­syl­va­nia. They have four grand­chil­dren and reside in Wil­low Brook Chris­t­ian Vil­lage off U.S. 23S.

Not only has the cou­ple had a suc­cess­ful mar­riage, they also thrived when oper­at­ing a busi­ness together.

Called Total Con­fer­ence Plan­ning Inc., they staged busi­ness ses­sions around the nation, call­ing on part on his expe­ri­ence in hotel man­age­ment. He ear­lier had worked as a life insur­ance agent. She had worked for Pru­den­tial for 22 years.

In their own busi­ness, he worked out­side the office, which she man­aged. “We worked together very well,” she said.

They remain active. He works two morn­ings a week at Hid­den Val­ley Golf Course and she vol­un­teers one day a week for the Red Cross.

Also at the event, Don­ald and Dianne Almendinger were rec­og­nized for the most recent anniver­sary date among those attend­ing. They cel­e­brated their 61st anniver­sary the day before the celebration.

Among those who signed up for the event, Dorothy and Bernard Patrick received the Most Years Mar­ried Award, at 76. Max­ine and Richard Kel­ley received the Look How Far You’ve Come Award, given to the cou­ple whose wed­ding was the far­thest away from Delaware.

Posted by Gary Henery on Oct 17 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.