60th Anniversary

June 27th, 1959 – 60 years ago – how can this be?

We grew up in the 40s and 50s, (just previous to the hippie era), coming from simular backgrounds,ie:

  • rural farming communities
  • sheltered
  • influenced much by family and extended family, learning traditional values from our Mennonite heritage and
  • somewhat by the secular surrounding which really wasn’t that much different.

We chose to be married, have a home and family of our own. We thought, from observation of parents and extended family, that we would “live happily ever after”. We did not have an “instruction” or a “how to” book to guide us. It never occurred to us that the marriage relationship and day to day living was something that you had to work at to be successful and no idea how to how to go about that, so we learned as we went – on the job so to speak.

We learned that a good marriage takes some thought and restraint. Some things need to be excluded –

  • prejudice
  • intolerance
  • preconceived ideas
  • social conventions

It is what we made of things that mattered. We chose to put into our marriage a willingness to listen to each other, our ability to admit our mistakes, our abiding faith that we were in every sense partners in making our marriage work. We expressed our disappointments as well as our joys, frustrations as well as triumphs.. With these things included the dull matters of everyday living, over the course of time, became something quite unique to both of us. We learned to nurture our relationship, to bring to the surface things that had become hidden and suppressed. We learned to look for the extraordinary in the ordinary. And we are still learning.

So, here we are 60 years later, still learning, and wondering how did we get here so fast.

Thank-You For Loving Us

Ray and Betty Good