Long-time valentines share secrets of lasting marriages

Every February 14, people have a reminder of how important it is to love somebody and to have someone love you. Some couples in the Quoddy area who have celebrated a great many Valentine Days together were asked how they found their life partners and what has made their marriage last.

They met in the summer of '42
Gates and Ferne Johnson of Perry will be celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary this year on September 3. The two met in Perry in the summer of 1942, recalls Ferne, who grew up in Marysville, N.B. "My parents came over to visit his. Both of them were boyhood friends. I was about 16 years old, and my impression of him? Well, you know a teenager with a boy." And Gates' attraction to Ferne? "She was willing," he jokes.

Two-and-a-half years older than Ferne Loring, Gates graduated from high school and attended Ricker College in Houlton which was, conveniently, not far from Marysville. "He used to cross at McAdam and come to Marysville to visit," recalls Ferne. After college and the advent of World War II, Gates went overseas, where he served in the infantry, so he was gone for almost three years. Not long after he came home on New Year's Day 1947, the couple decided to get married. The wedding took place later that year, on September 3, and the bride and groom were married by Ferne's father, Wallace Loring, who was a minister.

The newlyweds settled in Perry, where they raised a daughter Ivy and three sons, Robert, Dana and Loring. In 1964, after their children were growing up, Ferne started working for the U.S. Postal Service. Gates drilled wells and worked part-time in the post office before transferring to U.S. Customs, from which he retired in 1987. Ferne hung up her postal service uniform for good the next year.

"He's always been a good husband to me," says Ferne of Gates and their five decades of life together. Her advice to other couples? "Marriage is a 50/50 proposition. You have to give, and you have to take."

"When I got ugly, she wouldn't fight back," smiles Gates. "We've had a great life together."
“I figured I'd never see him again..."

Earl and Thiry Morse of Grand Manan have been married for 45 years and celebrated that anniversary in November.

Thiry Browne, who was named for a character in the Zane Grey books that her parents loved, grew up in Carleton County, N.B., while Earl Morse was raised on White Head. They met in 1961 while she was working as a telephone operator in Saint John.

"He was visiting his aunt in Saint John, and I was friends with her," recalls Thiry. "He also had an aunt in Hampton. He found out I lived in Hampton and asked me if I wanted to go visit my parents while he visited his aunt."

She says her first impression of her future husband was that he was a commercial fisherman, "and I figured I'd never see him again. He worked out of Nova Scotia." Thiry was proved wrong, as Earl came back to see her several times after their initial meeting on August 1 and then presented her with a diamond in October. The two 22-year-olds married on November 17, 1961, "in the shortest time possible," says Thiry, who had no serious boyfriend before Earl came along.

"The Lord must have put us together. I wasn't saved, and she was," points out Earl. "Most girls attracted me back then, but she was special."

The Morses settled on Grand Manan and raised a son Robert, who lives on the island and is a fisherman; daughter Stephanie, who is married and has two children; and married daughter Lenora, who lives on White Head and raised four children. Earl was a herring fisherman until 1981 and worked as maintenance engineer on the ferry "until the doctor retired me."

Some couples don't adapt well to post-retirement and being together all day, but not the Morses. "Where one goes, the other one is, even if it's just to the store," points out Thiry. They even sold their house, bought a motor home and travelled across Canada in it last summer. "We like camping. We took a 70-day road trip. There better not be any friction between us when you're in a motor home together for 70 days," she notes.

Residing in a senior citizen complex on the Grand Manan, the Morses are tentatively planning a trip to Newfoundland. "It will either be in the motor home or the alternative. We both have four-wheelers and we enjoy the outdoors so we might go on a seven-day and eight-night trip on them with some other people," reports Thiry.

Asked if they have any advice for newlyweds and couples that are planning to spend their lives together, Earl offers, "I guess I'd say not to rush into anything, even though we did. And remember that the Lord is your Saviour."

"Never stop talking," advises Thiry. "I don't mean chatter. If there's a problem, talk it through."
A wedding dinner of peanut butter and crackers Frank and Alice Theriault of Lubec celebrated their 44th wedding anniversary on September 29. This was the second marriage for each of them, but they had known each other since they were children.

"She had a snotty nose and diapers," says Frank, laughing at his exaggeration. "It was almost that long ago."

"He says I chased him," chuckles Alice. "He was on the Duke, and he says I used to swim behind the boat all the way to St. Andrews."

The two actually became acquainted at a young age because Frank was a good friend of Alice's late brother Allen Corey. "We went out together when I was in high school," recalls Alice, who at age 73 is three years younger than Frank. "Then he went in the service, so I married another guy from Lubec and moved away. After I got divorced, I moved back home. He had been married and divorced. He used to come to see me, we'd get to talking, and we started going out."

They decided to give marriage another try, and Alice sums up their 1962 wedding and honeymoon as a funny story. "We got married at the Temple Church in Lubec, and from there we went to his parents and had peanut butter and crackers. Then we went to Rockland to visit his sister for a couple of nights, and then we went to Tewksbury, Massachusetts, to spend a couple of nights with my sister. It wasn't very romantic."

Alice was the mother of a boy and a girl, and Frank had three sons when they tied the knot. They added a son and two daughters of their own to make it a very large family.

"He was just a nice person. He used me good," says Alice of her attraction to Frank and the longevity of their marriage. "He never drank. I'm not a drinking person and neither is he. And it's been 100 percent on both parts."

Frank says the fact that Alice is "a hell of a good cook" and that she is "just a nice person" attracted him to her. "My first wife was nice too," he adds. "We just didn't see eye-to-eye, but we always got along. It's good if you find the right person."

Mother takes in newlyweds
Willard and Julia Suddy of Eastport have been married for half-a-century, reaching their golden wedding anniversary date on June 6 of last year. The two can't remember exactly when they first laid eyes upon each other, but Willard is pretty sure it must have been at one of the Friday night Knights of Pythias hall dances he attended in Eastport. Julia thinks she first met Willard in his hometown of Pembroke and recalls, "We were friends, and we kind of got together."

The Pembroke boy and the Eastport girl dated for about a year before they married on June 6, 1956, at the Dennysville home of Willard's sister and brother-in-law, Joyce and Keith Damon. "There was no honeymoon," recalls Willard. "Two days later, I had to go back to work for Sargent's. They were working on the road in Whiting." The newlyweds moved in with Julia's mother, Gertie Taylor, and lived with her until they built their own house. Then she moved in with them.

The Suddys had one daughter, Alice, and one son, Willie, and during their life together Julia has been employed making wreaths, baby-sitting, as a salesperson at J.J. Newberry's and, for the past 34 years, cooking in the cafeteria of the Eastport Elementary School. Willard was a fixture at J.W. Raye's mustard mill for many years, making the product with his brother Clarence.

"We got along good," says Julia of her 50 years of marriage to Willard. "When my mother moved in with us, he didn't seem to have any problem with that. And it was good to have her there.

"We've had a good marriage," agrees Willard. "We just worked at it and kept it together. I put up with her, and she puts up with me.