Retired school teachers John and Ellen Norman recently celebrated their 56th wedding anniversary.
They were both born in 1940; John was born and raised in Langley Prairie, B.C. (now known as Langley since 1955). Ellen (MacGreggor) was born in Edam, Sask. She was the eldest of six children; her father sold the farm and moved to Langley for a better life for his family.
John and Ellen met and dated in high school, graduated together, separated for awhile and met up again while attending UBC; they married at the age of 21 and started their teaching careers in Prince George. Here is their story:
John was raised in the farming area near Langley; his father owned the Langley Hotel.
He remembers the great floods of 1948 when a major flood of the Fraser River took its grip on Chilliwack, Fort Langley and Mission causing an estimated $20 million in damages, the evacuation of 16,000 people and damage or complete destruction of about 2,000 homes. It was the worst flood the region had seen since the one in 1894.
John graduated from high school, went to university for his teachers training and worked on the paving crew for Columbia Bitulithic during the summer. He earned his degree by attending summer school at UBC. He got married and brought his new bride to Prince George.
Ellen reflected back and said, "Our first date was in Grade 10. We both belonged to the Hi-Y (high school YMCA) club at our Langley high school. John invited me to go to a swimming party at the YMCA in New Westminster. A group of us were carefully chaperoned and driven to the party by one of the high school teachers. Not much chance to get into any trouble but it seemed very exciting at the time.
"We are both looking forward to attending our 60th high school reunion in Langley in 2018.
"John was attending summer school; we got married and spent our honeymoon weekend in a funny little motel in White Rock. At the end of that summer we packed our few possessions into a small U-Haul trailer and headed for our teaching jobs in Prince George.
"I had never been north of Hope and I was becoming more and more concerned about all the wilderness as we headed to Prince George. John comforted me by reminding me that we were only staying for one year and could then return to civilization."
Ellen said, "An interesting thing to note was that in those days all the male teachers were required to wear a shirt and tie and jacket even on the hottest days while female teachers were not allowed to wear slacks even on the very coldest days."
Their first house was a building that had been moved to Eighth Avenue and Alward Street after being used as a jail at the old Second World War army base.
After a couple of years, they moved into the Park Village Apartments. By this time they had two small daughters and were able to buy their first house on North Nicholson Street for $19,000.
John said, "The city was really growing and new subdivisions grew quickly but in 1972 we bucked the trend and bought the old Alexander house on Larch Street near Connaught Hill.
"It had been built in 1921 and is now a heritage house. It needed a lot of TLC and we spent the next 28 years restoring it. It had old cast iron radiators, the remnants of a coal room and a huge water boiler in the basement; no furnace - just an old gravity hot water system but we were never cold."
John taught school for five years and principled for 30 years. He started out as a physical education teacher and during his career he taught at Duchess Park, Harwin, Quinson, North Nechako, South Fort George, Peden Hill, Van Bien, College Heights and Foothills.
He served on many district committees and enjoyed coaching boy's basketball teams and organized district track and field meets.
He retired in 1996 after 35 years in his field of school administration.
John explained, "Principals were appointed and it was a policy to spend no more than five years at a school. We were always encouraged to move from one school to another."
Ellen's first teaching position was in Langley. When she moved to Prince George, she taught at Connaught, Carney Hill, Harwin, Pinewood and Ron Brent. She specialized in special education and never gave up on her goal of obtaining her degree.
With full support from John, she managed to teach, raise the girls and obtain her degree at the age of 50. She retired in 1996.
John and Ellen had three daughters; Heather (Ed) Tandy, Robin (Glenn) Haley and Kathy who gave them four grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
Ellen said, "As a stay-at-home mom, I became a Brownie leader, taught Sunday school, participated in early theatre workshop productions, served on the board at the YMCA and assisted in the RCMP Girls Run for Fun event.
"John and I both helped out with the Pisces summer swim club when our girls were involved even though neither of us liked swimming.
"We worked together on the Festival of the Arts Event in 1998, the Otway biathlon events and we volunteered many long hours for the 2015 Winter Games.
"We both belong to the Retired Teachers Heritage Committee. We were willing volunteers and then found great satisfaction in all the things we were able to do to give back to our community."
John volunteered for many years at the Two Rivers Art Gallery putting in many hours on their fundraising committee.
Besides his volunteer work, John served as district electoral officer for two consecutive provincial elections starting in 2001.
Ellen wrote two books; Ideas and Activities for Primary Language Arts and Handbook for Parents - Language Arts Grades 2-3.
She decided writing was not for her and joined the Prince George Road Runners club. For the next 10 years she competed in many five and 10 km races and fun running activities. She trained hard running 40 to 60 km a week and finally was happy to complete a half marathon in the Royal Victoria Marathon Race when she was 67. She does much less strenuous running these days but still enjoys meeting up with her running friends for the occasional dinner.
Ellen concluded by saying, "In 2000 we wanted to travel more so we sold our big house, bought a small condo and built a cabin at the lake. The lake house has now become a favorite gathering place for the family.
"Our family all have fishing, camping, sports and traveling in common and I believe that all those things brought us all closer to one another.
"This past year has been a little less active as John has been recovering from both a stroke and a heart attack. He had surgery in St. Paul's Hospital on Dec. 20, 2016 and we felt very fortunate to be sitting around our daughter's Christmas table with our family that same year as we celebrated Christmas together.
"John is a long time Cougars hockey fan and with the help of our kids he managed to get to most of the games this past season.
"Regardless we are enjoying our retirement, we love Prince George and believe it or not we had originally only intended to stay here for one year."
