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Checking In With The Valentines Day Experts Meet The Over 50 Club

photo provided Olin and Eunice Flynn on their wedding day in 1946

photo provided Olin and Eunice Flynn at their 65th celebration

photo provided Maurice and Mildred Paquette

Tuesday February 14, 2012

By Cookie Steponaitis

    Since time in memoriam, humanity has been obsessed with the secrets of love. Poets have written sonnets, gurus have invented systems and the Internet will even promise to bring you your best match. However, annually the mystique about the illusive emotion love becomes more visible more than at any time of the year on Valentines Day. So, where does one go to get the true story so to speak? Where is the wisdom? Where’s the beef? What happens with the chocolates, jewelry, flowers and new trinkets that need dusting or replacing? Where are we intrepid travelers of love’s path to go when we want to seek advice and find answers? The experts have been here all the time just waiting to be discovered!

    The Valley Voice proudly introduces the Over 50 Club. Now this is not about age and will not get you any special discounts at stores, restaurants and businesses. In fact, to join this exclusive group there is only one requirement which is a major accomplishment because the members of this club have been married for over 50 years. What started out as a short list of members has quickly grown to over a page and a half of Addison County couples who have defied the odds and stood the test of time. They have become anchors in their families, communities and towns and examples of the longevity, power and tenacity of real love and marriage. It wasn’t possible to get to all the members for this article, so the Voice celebrates all the couples and invites all of you would be lovers, lovers in training and just plain curious to meet some of our married experts who at over fifty years of marriage would still do it all over again.

Olin and Eunice Flynn
65 Years Strong

    Olin and Eunice Flynn of Ferrisburgh have been married 65 years. Olin first saw Eunice when she was working at what was then the Spade Farm in Ferrisburgh. They later met at a card party in North Ferrisburgh one cold winter night in February of 1946. They dated and were married on November 30, 1946.
Olin worked in road construction including the bridge on Route 7 in Ferrisburgh and the old bridge on Hollow Road. The couple also found themselves involved with Simmons in Vergennes for 34 years and Eunice continued to work at Spade Farm, Badlam’s Apple Orchard, Cook’s Store in Ferrisburgh and babysat for large numbers of local children. The couple today has five children, fifteen grandchildren, and eleven great- grandchildren. They attribute their long and happy marriage to loving each other and offer the following advice. “When you marry, love each other honestly, faithfully, and when necessary learn to keep your mouth shut!”

Larry and Elisse Gebo
Farm Life, Family and a Sense of Humor

    Fifty-five years ago Larry and Elisse Gebo graduated from high school in 1957 and started off on an adventure of married life. Was it love at first sight? Nope. But it was a loving partnership that has become even stronger with the count of three children, six grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Both Larry and Elisse chuckle about the dating part of their high school years and shared that both of them dated friends of the other person and that they often went out on group date together.

    Larry and Elisse labeled the basis of their marriage with three words, farm, family and humor. “Farm life really glues people together,” remarked Elisse. “You quickly learn that nothing is ever free and you have to work hard to get what you need in life.”  In addition to the family farm and work, the Gebos are famous for their support of their children and grandchildren’s athletics. Both Larry and Elisse attended most all of the hundreds of sporting events, games and fundraisers for their children and currently grandchildren. In addition, Larry and most all of the Gebo clan love hunting and spend hours together in different hunting seasons outdoors and on the land.

   Whether sharing stories of the farm, the fire, or children Mark, Lorri, Lissa, or grandchildren Heidi, Seth, Shanna, Hillary, Dylan, Taylor or four year old great-grandson Beckett, Larry and Elisse share a smile, a laugh and a bond that is clearly visible to anyone sitting with them at their table or visiting their home. “Besides,” remarked Elisse with a smile. “I worked all these years to train him but he’s not trained yet. And besides I am not going to start over at this point.” Larry simply smiles. All is well on the Gebo farm.
Maurice and Mildred Paquette

Sixty –Two Years that Began with a Square Dance

   “He just kept coming back around,” reminisced Mildred Paquette. “I met him square dancing in Ferrisburgh and he told me I was going to marry him, and after two years, you know what?  I did.” Sitting with Maurice and Mildred Paquette in their home, it is easy to see and feel the bond that has kept their marriage strong all these years. With seven children, fifteen grandchildren and sixteen great-grandchildren in the family and their home filled with images of all of them, it is quite easy to see that the focus of the Paquette marriage has always and will always be family.

   While each marriage is different, both Maurice and Mildred felt there was a key to making marriage work. “It is all about communication,” they shared. “Talk to each other and even if you don’t agree, keep talking. It is the basis of marriage and the basis of family.” So, the conversation did keep on, and the talk all came back to stories of home, stories of children and stories of square dancing with a certain young man that still brings a smile to her face and puts a spring in her step, sixty-two years later. “He was a great square dancer,” shared Mildred, as if it was some closely guarded secret. Maurice simply nodded his head, smiled and exchanged a look with Mildred that needed no translation. Marriage at the Paquette home still works, is still strong and is still about a couple that can dosey- do and promenade all the way home.
Bruce Clark Hodgman & Ann Bicknell Hodgman

A Fifty-Five Year Partnership Going Strong

    Bruce and Ann first met in the sixth grade when they were both eleven, even though Ann was the oldest of the pair by sixth months. While both can not attest to love at first sight because they were too young, their relationship started when they were freshman at Richford High School, and lasted through Ann’s three years of nurses training and Bruce’s Army service. Bruce left the Army and two and half months later they were married on November 17, 1956 in McIndoe Falls, VT (Town of Barnet, VT).

    Over the course of the first years of their marriage, the Hodgmans lived in Worcester, MA, and in Bennington, Vergennes, Waltham and Addison, VT with their children Suzie and Sandy who born in Worcester and Donna making her appearance in Burlington, while Danny was born in Bennington. Both Bruce and Ann had full time positions outside the home they built together and participated in demanding and rewarding careers that included teacher, registered nurse, cottage parents for teenage delinquent home, office managers and the owners of the Addison 4 Corner Store from 1974-1994. While both were busy as professionals, the emphasis of their marriage was always each other and the family they cherished above all else.

   When asked to share secrets on the longevity of their 55 year marriage both Bruce and Ann remarked, “Know each other well and be best friends before you marry. Stay best friends the rest of your lives.  Take care of each other.  Always put your family first.   Marriage takes work, compromise and most of all love. Commit to forever. Worship together.  Never go to bed angry.” The couple in addition to their friendship also cultivated hobbies and activities that they could share together. Ann reminisced, “We have enjoyed many hobbies together.  Bruce’s interest in competitive shooting led us to form, with others, the Indoor Competitive Pistol teams in Middlebury.   For several years we spent one winter night a week shooting bulls-eye targets.  One of my prize possessions was the Pistol Box Bruce gave me for Mother’s Day one year.   Our youngest daughter Donna joined us while in High School and continues to enjoy the hobby when she can find a team to join.”   

    Another treasured set of family memories centered on camping and travel.  Ann and Bruce shared, “Another recreation we discovered together was canoeing.   In the 1970s we bought a Grumman canoe, named it YUGAWTABEEKYDIN (you have got to be kidding) and explored many rivers and ponds in Vermont and on trips to other states.  We took our son on a ten day trip on the Allagash River in Maine when he was seven years old.  We also took the canoe on family trips and Suzie and Sandy had their turns with the paddles”

    Anyone reading this article looking for short cuts will be disappointed, but it seems that all of the couples featured have no new gimmicks, but instead have mastered the basics tenants of life that give solidity and support to the love that already binds them.  As daughter Suzy Hodsden reflected on how her parents shared so much with her and her siblings that was simply learned through watching them over the years and following their example.  “I think the main lesson I have learned from their marriage is that it is important to GROW together,” remarked Suzy. “ It’s important to share interests and try new things together. It’s also important to have separate interests but to show interest in each other’s accomplishments and adventures.  It is important to continue to grow together. My parents are my inspiration.  Their guidance has made me the person I am today!  It took a while and a few detours, but the path they paved was magnetic.”

    In celebrating people with fifty year plus marriages, the Valley Voice is celebrating the commitment of couples, families and the advice that they offer to all young seekers of the match that will last the test of time. Happy Valentines Day everyone and look past the trinkets to the heart of the matter, a partnership that stands the test of time! Congratulations to other Club 50 members including Carl and Ruth Bull, August & Judy Jerger, Elson and Anna Husk, William and Doris Roberts, Raymond and Rose Bodette, Sam and Joan Essex, Sam and Joan Cutting, Mr. & Mrs. Bill Larrabee, Mr. & Mrs. Martin Casey and the countless others who call Addison County home.                       

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