Ten years ago, when a young couple at a dance heard that we had been married 50 years, they asked what our secret was. Judith in her sage way suggested, “Don’t try to change the other person.” I added that sharing was the key.
I said when we went to Spain, she studied Spanish, when we went to Indonesia, she studied Indonesian, when we went to Portugal, she studied Portuguese (all true). The young couple looked at me, and I added that when we went to England, I studied English, when we went to Australia, I studied Australian … They got the idea: Each person has talents and they should be mutually appreciated, mine are not in other languages.
And she has not changed me, which is my excuse for staying immature.
We met in grade school at Barrhead, Alberta, where we learned a lot though we did not know one another. We grew towards the other from Grade 3 to grades five or six, coexistence predominated, which changed to nervous glances, including staring contests, to be replaced with strong interest by Grade 8, which became holding hands, eventual necking and passionate kissing.
Doing things together became ever more enjoyable despite the background of two very different families, one reservedly English, the other part of a noisy German clan. Hers worked long days with little play and no real parties. Mine too worked very hard, but combined it with much social activity, like boisterous card and board games and dancing after the physical labour. She shifted more and more towards participating in mine.
Pretty long hair, delicate features and refined softness matched a solid personality without striving, though not without ambition. Very early in our relationship those traits of hers complemented my brasher, more competitive, try-everything approach. We shared a desire to learn, with a mutual attitude eager to vacuum up knowledge by much reading and attentive listening to our teachers who encouraged all talents.
We started as friends and became lovers. We married at ages 20 and 19 and have remained both friends and lovers.
Much is owed to each other and we continue to collect daily appreciation of the other. She gets flowers nearly every week because she appreciates beauty; in the summer and fall they are from my garden. Since she is a rabbit in regard to greens, I grow endless salad makings for her, especially arugula, basil, and parsley.
In turn, she has been one of my copy editors for my many writings. I accept when she states that what I have written is too complex, not well expressed or plain rubbish. That acknowledgement is part of being partners: honest and direct. She provides endless patience to offset my rush or excitability and I provide the push to get projects underway, so again balance is the result.
She has been a good sport about my preparedness to take risks, like climbing some cliffs without knowing the outcome, or going down a perpendicular crack at the Cup and Saucer on Manitoulin Island, or driving in the traffic madness of Mexico, Italy, and Costa Rica.
Ok, in some instances she did it reluctantly and complained, though never whined. However, her achievements, such as getting to the top of the formation known as the Bread Knife in Australia, I applauded, and shared the pride in her successes as a teacher, as she has in my books and presentations.
Together, we embarked on a life of study and travels related to work. She studied and practiced early childhood education when we went to Oregon for my graduate studies in history, then to Europe for doctoral research. With two small children, no insurance and little money but much enthusiasm, we naively went off to encounter the places, art, concerts and architecture of which we had dreamed. She discovered her aptitude for languages and within three months of being in Germany gave a presentation in German to a study group.
We agreed on the methods of raising our children who have succeeded at life and exemplify the no-whine approach. A basic principle we applied was that when one was handling a situation, the other did not interfere. We cooked, we built, we read, we discussed and we encouraged them, as we did with each other. They survived 17 house moves in four years, due to studies and work, but grew with each new place.
One of Judith’s talents included cooking well with few utensils when we were poor students with two small children. Her talents were much appreciated in the family, later also benefiting friends and department members.
To illustrate, when we lived in a tiny two-room basement apartment in Bonn Germany, friends and visitors were amazed at what she could create with a two burner hot plate and two pots. However, though she remains the expert, eventually she preferred doing art, so now we share the task, and she has guided me to becoming a respectable creator in the kitchen.
Sharing and participating in the other’s passions helped cement our relations and reinforce good times exploring a lot of the world together. Thanks to her interest and knowledge, I have experienced the magic and beauty of over two hundred botanic gardens from Fiji to Germany, from Hawaii to Australia.
In turn, she has experienced 250 World Heritage Sites from Istanbul to Vietnam and from Italy to St. Petersburg with a personal historical guide. We have taken many journeys and lived in many lands, discovering the novel together mostly on our feet by joining hiking groups in Australia, France, Germany and Canada. Together, we have enjoyed the diverse cultures of the world, whether the jungles of Sulewsei, Indonesia, the deserts of Australia or the refinements of Berlin or Venice.
She received much quality time as I disappeared into my study to write, into archives and libraries to research, to golf courses, fishing holes or curling rinks and for hunt walks with friends. A further significant perspective on interactions: We never shouted at each other … until she started to lose her hearing. We never argued about where we were … after we had the GPS. We never fought over how to spend our money … once we had sufficient.
We have danced through a lot of our times and trips, as in Mexico, on our four cruises, at street festivals, and Sudbury clubs. Nothing like a slow sexy rhumba, a swinging waltz or a rambunctious polka to make you join together as a couple. We are known to be synchronized, even in our missteps, but so what. Keeping and sharing time together is the real secret.
It is not what you do but how you do it and with whom.
How does our married longevity relate to Sudbury? Off and on, nearly 50 years have been spent here since 1969.
We came with the attitude that we would stay two years, then find greener pastures, meaning a place of more culture and better scenery since we had just lived in Oregon (1964-1967, 1969) and Germany (1967-1968).
Yet, after a few years of discovering the Group of Seven scenery around Sudbury, the generally congenial work partners at the university, and the northern people of strong character, plus the ease of access at that time to Ottawa and Toronto (where we had friends), we voted with our feet to stay, to hike, to bike, to ski.
After I had won a prestigious fellowship for two years of research in Germany (1975-1977), we decided on Sudbury. Yes, it had pollution, but it also had space. It had opportunities to build at the university (now undercut). It had some cultural choices and seemed to be building in the right direction. We have not regretted making it our base for many excursions together.
The mutual paths trodden have gone far. They have been traversed hand in hand.
Dr. Dieter K. Buse, Emeritus, Professor of History, Laurentian University; co-author of Untold: Northeastern Ontario’s Military Past, 2 vols (Latitude 46; 2018, 2019) which won the Ontario Historical Society prize for best regional study published in the last three years, and of Come on Over: Northeastern Ontario which won the prize for best non-fiction book on Northern Ontario (2011). He thinks his wife, Judith, is pretty awesome.
