Friday Highlights

My grandparents celebrated 70 years of marriage back in 2007. This is a beautiful legacy given to the family, an epic milestone. Pictures of this day are plentiful and provide memories of celebration, laughter and a family connection even though separated by many miles. Lately, I have been going through photos to make sure I am not keeping any unnecessary doubles and attempting to organize the bins. I came across a newspaper clipping from that moment in time that likely my uncle sent, he has a way of kindly saving sentimental pieces for family. A very sweet article that shares some precious quotes I will treasure.

It was the funerals of my grandparents that last brought me to the farm (where my dad was raised). My Grandpa passed away in 2009 and my Grandma in 2012. We managed to take a trip before my Grandpa passed and decided to take our family to the farm with our four kids at the time. That was an adventure! Fly from Toronto to Edmonton, rent an RV from Edmonton to Lloydminster and park outside the farm for a few days. It was October, so no snow right? Saskatchewan has a way of unveiling a love for snow whenever it chooses! So, with a crisp, cool welcome we entered into a winter landscape in fall. The RV did not have heat or a built-in fireplace, so we went to sleep inside, thankfully. Once you enter a place you have visited over your entire life, memories fill your whole being and almost in a moment you fall back in time. The smell of her fresh baked bread, the trickling of the massive fish tank, the barking dogs, the laughter at shows like M*A*S*H or videos of old classic Disney movies we were lucky to watch. The adventures in the barn, riding horses, playing endless hours in the old cars or treehouse, winter tunnels, snowmobiles pulling a hood of a car with four eager kids in tow, hours of reading old comics, knitting legwarmers and headbands, eating veggies from the garden, the pond with stones we would stand on for the annual kid pictures. A flood of memories! All my siblings have similar and different memories too! But this marriage milestone we all have very clearly and we can share with our own kids.

Here is what I learned from the article:

The lady my grandma was working for encouraged her to date my grandpa, “Mind you, the other fellow was quite nice, and I felt quite bad. The lady I was working for said, ‘you know Frieda, you maybe shouldn’t be giving him up, [Mel] is so young, and the other one was very kind and a nice considerate person.’ And I said, ‘ya, but Mel makes me laugh more.’ So I guess that’s what changed my mind, and as long as he was willing, I was.” They were married two years later in Lloydminster. The only people present were a minster, bride and groom! Their honeymoon consisted of a shared brick of ice cream and went back to work the next day. Her wedding gift was a colt that she rode into town to get the mail, “…if he had given me diamonds, I wouldn’t had like it nearly as much. That was a faithful little horse.” They had very little and depended on others, “…everybody helped everybody. They weren’t worried about the dollar. It’s a different world today.”

Yes, she is so right on that point. Our world is incredibly different. That is why preserving these memories is so special for future generations.

“In case you want to know what might have contributed to our staying together is we had respect for one another, we always were polite and taught our children (they had four boys) to be polite…all I would say is treat each other kindly and don’t take things for granted.”

Thank you for the wisdom, legacy and marriage milestone Mel and Frieda!