By Diane McQueen
On March 1, Estelle and Come Moncion celebrate a true milestone — an amazing 70 years of marriage.
Lifelong residents of Val Caron, they met in 1942 and married in 1943 in Parry Sound, Ontario where our father worked during the war. But they met in an interesting way.
Our father said our mother’s family was raising two baby foxes as family pets.
When the mother fox died, the family added the baby foxes to one of their cat’s litter of kittens and she took them as her own. This was quite the attraction in the area at the time and my dad went to check it out.
That’s where he saw a beautiful blue-eyed girl and knew she was his soul mate.
Together, they raised eight children, Stella, Raymonde, Dorothy, Gerry, Maurice, Carole, Diane and Marc. The family has since grown to include 12 grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren with another great grandson on his way.
Our mother is a loving and patient woman. She devoted her life to working at home and taking care of the thing that means the most in her life, her family.
During his life, our father made several interesting career choices. At various times, he was a dog catcher, a truant officer, a miner at Inco and a mechanic.
He finished his working life as an equipment operator 28 years ago, retiring at the age of 64.
In his retirement, he took up carpentry. Each of his children have one of his handcrafted birdhouses, which we all cherish.
For more than 30 years, they enjoyed camping at Vermillion River in Dowling and just recently made the difficult decision to sell their trailer.
They did some travelling as well, spending their 50th wedding anniversary in Florida.
Respected members of the community in Val Caron, people still refer to them as “the cute little couple.”
To this day, our father still calls our mother “the love of his life” and says the secret to a long, happy marriage is to know when to keep your opinions to yourself.
Both of our parents are in good health and live an independent life in the same home in which we were raised. Mom still does the cooking and cleaning with some help from Dad, while he still drives his own vehicle to run errands.
We feel very fortunate to be able to share this special occasion with them and we are immensely proud to call them Mom and Dad.
Diane (Moncion) McQueen is one of Come and Estelle Moncion’s eight children.
