75th Wedding Anniversary:
This doesn’t happen very often!
Not in Golden.
Not anywhere.
Last Saturday, July 5th, was just an ordinary day for most of us in the Golden area. Not so for Russell and Ramona Elliott and their family. It was a very special day for them since it was the day they celebrated their 75th wedding anniversary.
Now it’s not unusual at all to have a 75th birthday, but it’s very special to have a 75th wedding anniversary. Theirs may be the first 75th anniversary that has ever occurred in the Golden area.
If it isn’t the first, it is certainly one of the very few. Most people have never known a couple who has reached that milestone, including this writer. Perhaps even including Russ and Ramona.
I had to ask.
No, Ramona has never known anyone who got there, nor has Russ.
So, how did this all come down?
For the bride, it all started in central Alberta, in the small farming community of Forestburg, in the household of the Carl Lien family, with two parents, two girls and five boys, including long-time Golden resident, Harold Lien, Ramona’s brother.
Ramona’s father was the local barber, and her mother was a homemaker. Ramona went to school to Grade 8 and then was needed at home to help her mother.
Russ is an Ontario boy, having first seen the light of day in Hamilton. The family did not stay long in Hamilton, moving when Russ was very small to Peterborough and then a ways further north to the small community of Apsley. He attended school there, and following his school years, he and his father worked in camp jobs for Ontario Hydro until they decided to come to Alberta.
Russ’s brother, Duke Elliott, also a long-time Golden resident, had come to Alberta earlier and was living in Forestburg, so Russ and his Dad went there. Both Russ and his father worked in the agriculture industry for some time and boarded at the Lien home, a common occurrence in Alberta in the early ’50s.
So with Russ and Ramona living under the same roof, it is perhaps not surprising that a connection could have grown out of that situation. But you also know that, in many cases, people say “it wasn’t love at first sight!”
I’m not sure if it was exactly love at first sight for these two or not, but there were some sparks!
During our visit for this story, Ramona asked, “Do you want to know how I caught him?”
“Of course, I do,” I said.
Here’s the story, from Ramona.
“One evening, Russ and his Dad were playing their guitars in an adjacent room to where I was doing something, so I just opened the door and winked at him!”
I asked her how she knew the wink did the trick. She didn’t know for sure how to answer that question, but she did know for sure that Russ’ father ended up playing the guitar by himself at the end of the session.
So it was off to the church in July of 1950, along with three bridesmaids and three groomsmen and a host of family, not knowing that they would still be holding hands seventy-five years later.
Russ was 19, Ramona was 16, and Forestburg would be home for the first six years of their married life. Russ’s first job was working in a coal mine close to Forestburg, but in January of 1956, it was time to follow brother Duke again, this time to Golden, B.C., to work in the forest industry, which was much different from what it is now.
Small sawmills, often small struggling sawmills that had trouble meeting payroll, predominated in the lumber business at the time. Missed paychecks made it much more difficult for young families at the time, but Russ and Ramona and their family survived, still being thankful for understanding grocers who would extend credit.
Russ’s career concluded with nineteen years of steady employment at the mill in Donald, with Russ, for many years, running both the log yard in Donald and the log yard at the Golden mill.
Ramona was a wife, mother and homemaker all through the years at the family home on Oberg-Johnson Road in Moberly.
Throughout the many years in which Russ and Ramona have lived in the Golden area, they have become widely known to many valley residents. In addition to their warm-hearted friendliness, Russ has become very well known for his masterful playing of the steel guitar. He has been a member of several bands, playing for weddings, dances and other events in Golden as well as down the valley.
Russ and Ramona’s family grew to include four children, three of whom were born in Forestburg and came to Golden as young toddlers.
Those three were Marilyn, Margo, Randy, and Susan, and Susan joined them in Golden. Nine grandchildren have also joined the family and have been followed by eleven great-grandchildren and one great-great-granddaughter.
And for that family, the Elliotts are grateful. “We have a wonderful group of kids,” they said, “they have done things for us that we never expected, and maybe didn’t deserve. They’ve taken us to Hawaii, they’ve taken us to Nashville. We are so fortunate to have them!”
So a good-sized family, all parented by Russ and Ramona, both in good health and looking forward to their 80th!
This story should end with some advice from the Elliotts on how they have managed to reach such a milestone in their lifetime. Fittingly, Russ had a story: “People are always asking me, ‘How did you do it?’”
His reply is like this: “The only thing I can tell you is that in a marriage, there are often little disagreements, and our marriage had some too. But one day, I said, ‘This is crazy, we are never going to mention this again.’” They didn’t, and they don’t.
Ramona had a thought on 75 years as well.
“I still wink at him,” she said.
