60 Years, Don and Ilda Macfie

It's not too often you hear of couples celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary,but two of my former neighbours did just that this past weekend.

The farm where I grew up, in Parry Sound district, looked out across the Great North Road (before the fields all grew up in brush).  On the far side of the highway was the Macfie farm, a farm that has seen at least four generations of the same family, actively employed in the agricultural industry.

Don was a World War II veteran who returned to the family farm, where he married the former Ilda Robertson.  They raised two sons and a daughter.

Photo courtesy Angela Dunnett

The Macfies kept a herd of crossbred beef cattle and tapped a large maple bush each spring.  As well Don logged in the winter and sawed the lumber in his own mill each summer.  He kept several of the youth in the area employed for the summer months between the haying and milling business.

Ilda was a homemaker who maintained a large garden and a hardy apple orchard - the only one of its kind in our area.

In later years, the eldest son took over the family farm, and Don and Ilda moved into the smaller house beside the farm, that his parents had built for their retirement.  Both have kept active in the community and are much loved by their nine grandchildren.

I've searched Facebook to get a recent photo of Don and Ilda, but don' t seem to able to locate one of the two together.  The best I can do is a couple of separate shots.

About ten years ago, taken from Mom's scrapbook.

Photo courtesy Jill Langford (Facebook)

Best wishes and congratulations to my former neighbours. Sixty years together is quite the milestone.

And that is about all I have to say for today.

Musings and meanderings from the Musical Gardener.