Married For 49 Years

This past week my husband and I celebrated our 49th wedding anniversary. Those 49 years have saw lots of ups and downs. We've been through losing our house twice to fire. I say house rather than home because I've always held that a house is a bulding but a home is where your heart is.

When our first house burned down and I called my brother to tell him, he said, "You lost your home to fire?"

My answer was "No. We lost our house, not our home. None of us were injured so we still have our home, we just don't have a house to put it in."

Raising four children on a farm presented plenty of challenges. Twelve consecutive years of drought, low prices for the cattle and wheat, high interest charges, and more. One year we lost over 50 calves to scours, caused by a bactera that we were told could have lived in the ground for many years, just waiting for the right combination of conditions that enabled it to surface.

We've been through health problems, several of which we are still contending with.

My husband getting kicked in his lower back by a calf resulted in his suffering a ruptured spleen which required major surgery. At the time we had no cattle on summer range or spring crops seeded, a two-day bull show and sale, a daughter preparing to be married in a few weeks, another daughter headed to Special Olympics, and a son getting ready to compete in the state music festival. But thanks to neighbors and friends, we made it through.

However, every time a problem reared its head, we managed to find a solution -- together. And to me that has been a major part of why we've had a good marriage. That and learning to control our tempers.

Both of us know we have really bad . We learned how to harness our tempers, how to cool off and then sit down to discuss why we got mad. Communication between a couple is an imperaative part of a marriage.

For us, our faith is a vital part of our marriage. Attending church every Sunday is extremely important to us. I can only recall a few times we missed. Those times were due to weather conditions or illness.

We both felt it was not only our duty but our obligation to share our faith by teaching Sunday school. And by taking part as fully as possible in lay ministry by being lectors and Extraordinary Ministers of the Cup.

We both served on our parish council, which I still do.

Regardless of the problems and tough situations we've encountered throughout the past 49 years, they've far been outweighed by the love, laughter, fun, and joy we've experienced.