Forty Years

March 29th is our 40th Wedding Anniversary. Where has the time gone? Yes, we were young once. The pictures prove it!

We were married in Tom's family church in Puyallup, an area famous for it's daffodil fields and it's daffodil festival, and it was March, so of course our colors were yellow and white and our flowers were daffodils.

My three sisters were my attendants, and my two brothers were ushers. Tom's best man was his brother and his groomsmen were his cousins. This was definitely a family affair.

I guess there was a tizzy about the cake not arriving at the church, but I knew it was coming from the Albertson's across the street and wasn't worried. Obviously they had experience and were waiting for everyone to go to the ceremony and then they brought it over and set it up. It was chocolate, at a time when nobody did that. Fresh flowers to match my daisy bouquet adorned the top, rather than the traditional bride and groom.

Tom and I met while teaching across the hall from each other at Mt. View Elementary School in the Highline School District, south of Seattle. I taught 4th grade and he taught 5th, so some of my students went on to his class the next year. The two of us had quite a fan club, in a school where many of the teachers were "old".

It was not love at first sight, at least on my part, since I had eyes for the young PE teacher at first, but it turned out that he was secretly engaged, and he went away after the first year. Then Tom began to pay attention to me. It might have been his taking me to the family cabin on Whidbey Island one beautiful, warm summer day, that stole my heart. I do know that it was when I showed up there alone over Labor Day weekend, with all of his family present, that put him over the top.

We were engaged at Christmas and married spring break. None of our students knew we were dating except one special little girl, Denise, who saw us out together. We swore her to secrecy. We were discreet in those day.

Of course once we announced our engagement, we were big news. We invited our students to the wedding and the parents formed a car pool to get the kids there. Many of these kids came from poor homes, some in the "projects", and this was a very big deal for them. My goodness, were they dressed to the nines. The wedding day was the weekend of Palm Sunday, so I'm sure they were wearing new Easter finery. And they were very well behaved, but I do remember some groans and giggles when we kissed.

After a cake reception at the church, family members gathered at Tom's parents house near the church for a buffet dinner and gift opening.

And then we were off on our honeymoon, at the cabin on Whidbey Island, of course.

We were young teachers, not very high on a not-very-high salary schedule, and we paid for most of our own wedding. The cabin was free, which was what we could afford. That was before credit cards, and going into debt was out of the question. Maybe that's one reason we have lasted over the years, we have shared a common sense approach to finances.

We have had a good life together so far. After we were married, the district made me change schools over the summer, and I taught three more years before resigning to raise a family. Jill was born in 1973 and Jacob in 1975. I did the co-op preschool duty, served in PTA and as parent volunteer, taught Sunday School, and was a Campfire leader for eight years. Tom taught fifth grade, Kindergarten, PE, and back to kindergarten. He coached youth soccer for ten years and was president of the soccer club for four years. It does take a village to raise a child, and we were a part of that village. I went back to work as an educational assistant part time, then full time, and finally back to certified teaching. All those years we shared a profession as well as our family.

After renting for a year, we bought our first house, a three bedroom rambler with yard where we could play and garden and raise vegetables and kids. Before Jill started school we had our current house built and have been here for almost 31 years. The house is paid for and we are retired, and we are still sharing a love of gardening, kids and grand kids, new opportunities for travel, and of course, Whidbey Island.