30th Anniversary

Today marks our 30th wedding anniversary, Greg & Alice. I wanted to make sure we reached that anniversary because in having done the family genealogy, most of our ancestors did not make their 30th anniversary. It is a bit surprising to see a certain pattern while examining your family tree.

Beginning with our parents; neither reached their 30th. With our siblings, one on my husband’s side did celebrate their 30th and only one out of the three siblings on my side (it was my sister who also had Alzheimer’s then). Then moving to grandparents; in the case of both sets on my side, they had 28 and 29 years of marriage. On my husband’s side grandparents; one set did reach their 50th and one was just over 30 years. Going back another generation, very similar situations with a few other couples married for more years.

In nearly all cases, one of the spouses passed away very young. Of course medical care has truly advanced over the decades, so you would hope in the 21st century there is less of a chance a spouse becomes a widow or widower at a young age.

Just like it is important to know your family medical history for your own health, it is also interesting to observe family patterns of behavior. There are some family lineages where frequent divorces or separations take place, even many years ago. It was not always an official divorce or separation, but rather the couple living apart and ‘stating in public’ they were widowed, since it was NOT culturally acceptable to be divorced (for men or women). In doing research on numerous family lineages I have seen that scenario countless times. So if it appears a spouse has passed away, make sure with an obituary, death notice, cemetery record that it was true at that time period. A reminder, there is also the spouse that just ups and disappears, leaving the family not knowing anything. The remaining spouse will sometimes state they are still married (which they are) or say they are widowed. The main clue to look for is that the spouse never remarried, they couldn’t if still married and not officially divorced. Studying some of the family marriage patterns can be quite fascinating.

So for this 30th ‘pearl’ anniversary, a major milestone, we celebrate our married years together and many more to come.

A saying: “Love is like an earthquake–unpredictable, a little scary, but when the hard part is over you realize how lucky you truly are.”