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Jim and Kay Robertson met at a local dance in the early 1950s. Both had arrived at the party with someone else, but something inexplicable about Kay — maybe it was her “lovely eyes and smile” — compelled Jim to ask for a dance.
The next weekend they met at another local dance with other dates, set weeks earlier. Both couldn’t help but sneak a dance again. Seventy years later, they’re still dancing.
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The sapling of their love blossomed into a relationship soon after the dance. Only a few days later, Jim asked Kay to marry him by calling her to a jeweller store. They wear the rings they had bought to this day.
The chance of a couple celebrating their 70th anniversary is rare enough to raise eyebrows. But what’s even rarer is that Jim’s younger brother John married his wife Anne the same year and celebrated their 70th anniversary on Oct. 26.
Anne, 89, met John, 90, in Lloydminster in the early 1950s when John moved next door. Anne caught one look at John and found him promising.
“He’s my kind,” she thought. “Tall, dark, brush cut, good lookin’, you know.”
John and his brother Jim had, in fact, known about Anne through her former boyfriend. “We didn’t think he was a good match for her,” John said. “So, I moved in on it.”
John remembers Anne walking across the intersection with high heels and a long coat, and thinking, “Damn it, that’s a good looking girl.”
But their love grew gradually through friendship and a realization they’re the one. “It wasn’t bolts or lightening,” John said. “It was a little bit every day.”
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Their journey to tying the knot wasn’t without its challenges. John, who was 20 at the time and Anne, a year younger, were not the legal age yet. So, they had to seek permission from their parents.
Jim and wife Kay too faced obstacles, with a fire burning down the post office operated by Jim’s parents, a United Church minister who was away on vacation, a Presbyterian minister, who they later realized was not licensed to marry people in Alberta.
But both weddings went ahead, the older brother’s in August and younger one’s in October.
Both couples also agree the highlight of their relationship were their children. Jim and Kay now have 5 children, 15 grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren while John and Anne share two children, three grandchildren, one great-grand daughter.
Speaking to Postmedia, Anne revealed the secret sauce of her relationship’s longevity.
“I would say there’s lots of ups and downs and in and outs and around and around, but sit down and work it out,” said Anne who lives with John at a senior centre in Medicine Hat.
“And remember you promised to love, honour and cherish each other.”
She went on, “We are so blessed that we have had 70 years and I still like living with him.
“We’re working on 71 today.”
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