Jim and Anne Marie Thibodeau celebrated their 70th anniversary on Saturday at Osoyoos Golf Club. The couple, originally from Saskatchewan, has had an adventurous marriage, travelling throughout Canada, the U.S. and Mexico in various recreational vehicles and building and flying ultralight planes. (Richard McGuire photo)
It’s not too many couples that can celebrate a 70th wedding anniversary, and it’s even fewer who have had the adventures of Jim and Anne Marie Thibodeau in their 70 years of marriage.
On Saturday, about 60 relatives and friends from near and far turned out at the Osoyoos Golf Club to celebrate the Osoyoos couple’s 70th.
The couple has lived in Osoyoos for about a decade, having lived in Oliver before that. Both are originally from Saskatchewan, where they first met as teenagers in 1942. They married in Duncan on Vancouver Island in 1948 and also lived there for many years.
For much of their marriage, they’ve travelled together throughout Canada, the United States and Mexico with a camper, motorhome and fifth wheels.
“The first one (trip) we took was in 1955-56 when we took a little house on the back of our truck and went across the States and into Mexico,” said Anne Marie. “We were gone four and a half months. And people thought we were nuts, but we had the most wonderful trip. Now they’re called campers.”
They made it down to Acapulco, Mexico.
Jim had a passion for ultralight airplanes, which he built and sold and after raising five children, the couple built a fifth-wheel trailer to travel North America, building, selling and flying the planes.
In 1986, they volunteered to do a “Gift of Wings” trip to raise money for the Paraplegic Foundation. They built an ultralight plane that Carl Hiebert, a paraplegic, flew from Halifax to Expo ’86 in Vancouver over about three months. Jim did maintenance and Anne Marie cooked.
Only in the last few years have they had to give up travel for health reasons. Jim is 92 and Anne Marie is 89.
Jim was born in Regina and Anne Marie was born in Melfort, Saskatchewan. Anne Marie was only 13 when the two met in the tiny community of Silver Park, near Melfort.
It was at a farm sale in 1942 and Anne Marie was selling tickets. Jim’s mother advised Anne Marie not to marry a man with a long name because you can’t write it on a ticket stub.
“Oh no!” replied Anne Marie. “I’m not getting married.”
The two didn’t visit in Saskatchewan, but coincidentally both families moved to Duncan two years after the two teenagers first met.
Six years after their first meeting, she married Jim, the oldest son.
“I had a white wedding, which was rare in those days,” said Anne Marie. “And we also took a honeymoon, which people didn’t usually do in those days.”
For their honeymoon, they travelled by bus to Vancouver, Seattle and back to Victoria.
In their years of marriage, they crossed Canada twice, they visited 48 of the 50 U.S. states, and they got to Mexico many times, as well as Australia, New Zealand, Cuba and Bahamas. And they visited Alaska twice, once by boat and once by road, and they got to the Northwest Territories, flying to Tuktoyaktuk.
“We enjoyed every trip to the fullest,” said Anne Marie. “We would still be travelling if our health was better.”
Asked the secret to staying in a marriage 70 years, Anne Marie said it’s to not try changing the other person, but to accept them as they are.
“Wives seem to think they can expect their husbands to make them happy, but that’s not the way it works,” she said. “You have to have things that make you happy and he has to have things that make him happy. And you come together and make a life and don’t criticize each other.”
They’ve had disagreements, but they work them out.
“We’ve never had a rip snortin’ fight in our lives,” she said. “We would be kind of quiet and then talked about it and sorted it out. Don’t go to bed mad.”
RICHARD McGUIRE
Osoyoos Times
Jim and Anne Marie Thibodeau celebrated their 70th anniversary on Saturday at Osoyoos Golf Club. The couple, originally from Saskatchewan, has had an adventurous marriage, travelling throughout Canada, the U.S. and Mexico in various recreational vehicles and building and flying ultralight planes. (Richard McGuire photo)
it was an honor to be part of that anniversary party..as the granddaughter of jim and Anne..it was so cool to see the family together. these days you don’t hear of people still together after all this time so this is history in the making. I’m proud to be part of it.