Retired lawyer Cornelius (Corny) Hughes and his wife, a retired hairdressing proprietor, Christa (Vogt) Hughes are the subjects of my column this week.
Corny Hughes, the eldest of seven children, was born in Victoria in 1935. He attended Willow elementary school, graduated from Oak Bay high school and years later graduated from law school.
After high school, he worked in a winery and then a bakery. He got married at the age of 18 and then joined the navy reserves. He soon discovered that there were no marriage allowances or benefits for reservists until they turn 21 so after his summer duty he left the reserves; Corny and his wife separated shortly after.
He sold magazines for a while and then for the next ten years he worked 400 miles north of the Arctic Circle on the DEW line (Distant Early Warning line) as a warehouseman.
The DEW line was a system of radar stations located on the north coasts of Alaska and Canada set up during the Cold War to detect incoming Soviet bombers and to provide early warning of any sea or land invasion. The DEW line was the northernmost and most capable of three radar lines in Canada and Alaska.
Corny said, "I made good money working at the DEW line and the best part of it was that there was no place to spend it.
"When I left the Arctic I bought a share in a restaurant in Victoria. We were three partners and we operated two restaurants."
It was during the time at the restaurant that he met and married Christa.
Christa Vogt was born in Breslau, East Germany in 1942. Her father was a former prisoner of war and was held in a Russian prison in Siberia for six years; he was released in September of 1949.
Her father did not speak English when he immigrated to Port Alberni in 1954 to begin a better life for his family. He started his own architectural company and when he had money in the bank and a house for his family he sent for his wife, Christa and her brother in 1955. Sadly her father was killed in a work related accident in 1959.
Christa graduated from hairdressing school in Victoria, worked as a hair stylist in Victoria for awhile and then they moved to Vancouver where she worked in a shop for three years on Denman Street.
Corny and Christa met through mutual friends. He was given her phone number and phoned her in the middle of his golf game and asked her out for dinner.
Christa said, "I didn't want to go out with him until I could see what he looked like. It turned out that there was no time for that so I went out with him anyways and the rest is history.
"My German mother had a saying, 'if they make it I'll eat my broom' so we went out and bought her a broom. We teased her about that for years."
It was Christa who convinced Corny to go to law school. She was reading the newspaper about the Kennedy assignation and all the reports coming out from the lawyers and realized that the lawyers were going to make a lot of money before this incident was put to rest. She talked about it with Corny and convinced him to consider going to law school.
Corny was a partner in two restaurants in Victoria; The Coach and Four Steakhouse and the McPherson Theatre Restaurant. He decided to sell his share and go to law school. There was no money in the business to buy him out so he traded his share to one of the partners for the option to live rent free in one of his duplexes for the next seven years while he went to law school.
Everyone involved thought this was a perfect arrangement.
He finished undergraduate school and because of his hard work and good marks he graduated from pre-law, at the University of Victoria, in three years instead of the normal four years. From there he went on to law school for another three years.
He graduated from the University of B.C. in 1973 and decided that he wanted to get involved in politics and considered running for Member of Parliament for the Conservative Party. His advice was to run for office in either Kamloops or Prince George so with that in mind they moved to Prince George.
They moved to Prince George and Corny articled at Wilson King, which at the time was the largest law firm in Prince George.
Corny got involved in politics but never ran for MP; instead he became the B.C. advance man for MP Robert Stanfield - the 17th Premier of Nova Scotia and the leader of the federal Progressive Conservative Party from 1967 to 1976.
A note of interest: Robert Stanfield was born into the affluent Nova Scotia Stanfield clothing manufacturing family in 1914. It was his family that is famous for manufacturing the Stanfield line of quality men's underwear and specialty clothing here in Canada for over 160 years.
Corny's duties from 1972-1975 covered everything from arranging all the meetings, itineraries, tours and schedules for the party leader's events when he came to B.C.
He did the same for MP Joe Clark's election campaign in 1976. Joe Clark served as the 16th Prime Minister of Canada from 1979 to 1980.
He was the returning officer for the referendum on the Charlottetown Accord in 1992.
The Charlottetown Accord was a package of proposed amendments to the Constitution of Canada and proposed by the Canadian federal and provincial governments; the referendum was submitted to the public and defeated in October of 1992.
Corny was later appointed as the Prince George-Bulkley Valley district returning officer.
He retired in 1995 at the age of 62 after 22 years in his profession.
Christa was a successful Prince George businesswoman and independently owned her own hair salon. She operated Contours Hair Salon for 20 years and then retired. Over the years she ran it like a social hub and developed long-term friendships with her employees and her clients.
She volunteered for the Hospital Auxiliary for many years, helped out at bake sales and knit and crocheted for many fundraisers. She was always willing to give back to her community.
Corny had a son, Ronald, from his first marriage; together Corny and Christa had two more children - Stephanie (Art) and Thomas (Caley) - who in turn gave them four grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
Corny was a member of the Lions Club, the Gyro Club and he was one of the co-founders of the Prince George Old Timers Hockey Club. He said, "Hockey was my game; I played hockey all my life and finally gave it up when I retired. Then my game became golf and for awhile I played twice a day."
Christa said, "I was always told that you can not retire until the kids leave home and they take the pets with them. All of this was in place so we went golfing full time. We retired the golf clubs and now we play bridge.
"We recently celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary. There was a time that we considered moving to the Island to retire but that thought didn't last long. Prince George has been a great place to live and raise a family. We have good friends and this is a great city so we are staying right where we are."
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Congratulations on these two special anniversaries for the month of August 2017: 70 years for Bob and Kay Gable - watch for their story next week in this column - and 68 years for Harold and Doreen Hewlett. The story of Harold and Doreen Hewlett will be in one of my September columns. These two couples are truly an inspiration and their lasting love is one of the world's most beautiful things.
