Medicine Hat couple’s love still strong after 70 years

“I came to Medicine Hat for Christmas, my parents lived here and that’s where I met her and saw her and I was just flabbergasted,” says LeRoy.

That feeling was mutual. Betty said she fell for her future husband the second she heard him sing.

“My friend was at the piano and LeRoy was singing and I looked in the living room and I thought ‘mmmhmm, there he is,'” says Betty with a smile.

The couple married and settled on LeRoy’s family farm in the small community of Woodroe, Sask.

That’s when they started having children. It was always Betty’s dream to have a large family.

“She says ‘well someday, if I ever get married … I want a big family,'” says LeRoy. “‘At least six.’ And I thought wow I have no objection to that on the farm.”

The couple ended up having nine children and quickly became the largest family in their small community.

“We got right to work,” jokes LeRoy.

Betty recalls a conversation she had with a bus driver as the family left for a dentist appointment.

“So we got on the bus with all these kids and the bus driver said are these all yours or is this a picnic? I said they’re all mine but it ain’t no picnic.”

Today the couple lives in a condo here in Medicine Hat where they receive regular visits from their nine children and 78 grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

“We laugh at each other because we raised nine children and we hardly ever had any time to sit by ourselves and enjoy each other,” LeRoy says.

It hasn’t always been an easy road for LeRoy and Betty but over the years the couple says they’ve learned to trust each other and lean on one another for support.

They also say their faith has kept their love strong and has helped teach them to take the time to listen.

“Is to listen and to hear what the other one has to say and if we can listen to each other, then I can understand where you’re coming from, you and I can get along really good,” says LeRoy.

“It’s so important not to dwell on little things. Little things can build up in something like a break up and a marriage even, but those little things are nothing, there is nothing. Just put it aside and love each other again,” says Betty.

On this Valentine’s Day, Betty would like to share a verse of a poem she feels reflects her love with LeRoy.

by Brendan Miller

Medicine Hat couple’s love still strong after 70 years

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