Longtime Valentines share recipes for happiness

Valentine's Day is a reminder of the importance of having someone to love and to have someone love you. Three couples living Downeast were asked how they found their life partner and what has made their marriage last. Between the three, they have been married over 171 years.

Believing in "I do"

“God has blessed us."

Jim Spinney of Eastport is summing up the life he and Shirley Creamer have had since they married almost 58 years ago and raised a family of three sons. "With kids, that's what's important. Bringing them up. The years stretch out and, by the time the last one's out, you've been married for 25 years."

"During the harder times, you stick together more," he adds. "I believed it when I said, 'I do.'"

Although they are only eight days between them in age, they wound up being two years apart at Shead Memorial High School. "I was a sophomore and he was a senior, and we met at a basketball game," recalls Shirley of Jim, who grew up in Perry. "I went with a couple of friends, Marion Creamer and Shirley Finch. He was very pleasant. I'd been out with some boys, but he was different. Quiet. I just seemed to like him."

Jim went to automotive school in Augusta for two years after he graduated from Shead in 1947. "He gave me a diamond in 1950, and everything was sped up because he went into the service," says Shirley. "He went into the Navy the same day his mother got his draft notice."

"I called her from boot camp and said, 'Let's get married,'" remembers Jim. The couple's wedding was held at Christ Episcopal Church on May 13, 1951, while Jim was on leave. Serving as their maid of honor and best man were Shirley's cousin Ann Toal and Jim's brother John. "That's where they met," points out Shirley. "And then they got married."

While Jim spent four years in the Navy, stationed in Newport, R.I., Shirley stayed with her parents. "You had to get used to it," she says of those early years of marriage. They purchased the Cummings Esso service station, where Jim can still be found working every week day, and the Spinney family gradually grew to five, with Ron's birth in 1954, Roger's in 1959 and Robert's in 1969. Now the elder Spinneys are grandparents to Patrick and Charlie and when two-year-old Allison is adopted this year, they will finally have a girl in the family.

Gentle kindness

John and Ann Spinney of Perry celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in 2007, 56 years after they first met at the wedding of John's older brother Jim to Ann's cousin Shirley.

"He was a good-looking young man," recalls Ann, who was only 15 years old at the time. "But I wasn't allowed to have a boyfriend."

Ann says she was attracted to John's kindness and gentle personality. "He's very caring man. A Christian man."

"I had some girlfriends, but she was the only date I had that I was serious about," recalls John.

On the day that they planned to pick out Ann's engagement ring, Ann asked her father, a cotton mill employee, to stay home. "I said we had something to say to him. God knows what he was thinking," chuckles Ann. "John asked him if he could have my hand in marriage. He said yes, and we went to buy the ring."

The wedding took place in All Saints Anglican Church in St. Stephen on June 22, 1957. John's brother Jim stood up with him, and Ann's sister was her maid of honor.

The newlyweds lived in Quoddy Village for two years before moving to what would be their permanent home in Perry in the autumn of 1960, a year after their daughter Karen was born. John was employed at Georgia-Pacific for almost 40 years, before he retired.

"Everyone has their ups and downs, but we've weathered them," John says of his successful marriage. "Ann's taken care of me. We've traveled quite a bit together. We have good times."

"Everybody's life is difficult sometimes. You have to work together to make the marriage possible," says Ann. "We've cared too much about each other to carry a burden or a grudge."

Good luck and compatibility

Jerome and Zella Gilmore of Grand Manan celebrated their 62nd wedding anniversary last year. The North Head residents have been married since September 14, 1946, about one year after they met each other in Saint John.

"We were boarding in the same place," recalls Zella, a native of Jemseg, N.B.. "I was working at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, and he was in the Army." The couple became attracted to one another one evening when the lady who managed the boarding house went away to a funeral. "We were left in charge to get our own supper. He and I worked on it together. We served some good meals."

Zella was 19 years old, and Jerome, a native of North Head, was nine months older. "We went together for probably close to a year before we got married," she says. "We had a big wedding at my home church. My sister Barbara Dykeman and my friend Mary Butler stood up with me. Reginald Flagg, a childhood pal, was my husband's best man."

"We moved to Grand Manan right after we were married. Back to island life," recalls Zella, who not only fell in love with Jerome, but with his home. "I think it's wonderful here. We've always had family and good friends."

Jerome has been active in the Royal Canadian Legion and is the longest living member of Grand Manan Branch 44. The couple are members of the North Head United Baptist Church where Zella taught Sunday school, sang in the choir for over 50 years and is a member of the Women's Missionary Society, where she has held the offices of president and secretary.

"There's no secret to how we've stayed together so long. It's just good luck," says Zella. "We're very compatible. Every place we go, we go together."

Jerome, a retired fisheries officer, echoes his wife, "We got along very well and try to be compatible. She didn't abuse me, and I didn't abuse her."

"And she's a good cook," he adds.

The Gilmores are parents to a daughter and son, Greta and Glenn, and grandparents to Gregory, whose wife will be graduating this spring from Dalhousie in Halifax, and Gillian, who will graduate from the University of New Brunswick in May. "I'm just hoping that they're not graduating on the same day," chuckles Zella.