Couple celebrates 60 years of marriage

There was a time when most people didn’t live to be 60 years old. But for Dick and Pay Hays of Bigfork, that’s how long their marriage has lasted and it all feels like yesterday for them.

The couple celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary on Nov. 30, and the last 60 years have been anything but a typical marriage for Dick and Pat. Dick worked for the FAA for 33 years, which meant the family had to relocate dozens of times.

Just eight years into their marriage, the Hays family moved to the Alaskan tundra in January of 1960.

“It seems like it was just four or five years ago,” Dick said. “The things we did 50 years ago seem like yesterday.”

Some of the things they clearly recall include the challenges of raising their son, Curtis, and daughter, Kay, in a predominantly Alaskan Native village on Woody Island. Most of the native children would stay out until after midnight during the summer and the Hays’ kids wanted to do the same.

Other memories of their time in Alaska aren’t remembered quite as fondly.

“The thing I remember most was the earthquake in 64,” Pat said. “It was terrible, you don’t realize what went on until afterward and then you get scared.”

The island where the couple lived at the time was tilted by the quake and split in two. The town of Kodiak was completely destroyed by a tidal wave. All that remained was the steel and concrete.

As exciting as their adventures in Alaska were, it wasn’t all earthquakes and tidal waves for Dick and Pat. Pat said the most memorable thrills were learning to waterski on the Yukon River and seeing the Pacific Ocean for the first time in the 1950s.

“I liked the 50s and 60s better than any time in my life,” Dick said. “Salaries were pretty good then and the cost of living was more in tune with salaries than now.”

They met at a country-dance while they were still high school students living on ranches in eastern Montana. Both of their families had lived in Montana since the 19th century.

Pat graduated from Custer High School in 1951 and Dick graduated from Forsyth in 1952. They lived 45 miles away from each other and dated for three years before marrying at Trinity Lutheran Church in Miles City in 1952.

“I asked him what attracted him to me and he said it was my long red hair,” Pat said with a smile. “But it’s not long and red any more.”

The couple went out for dinner at the Bigfork Inn on Friday and then shared cake with their “church family” after Sunday services at Bethany Lutheran Church.

Pat said the only thing they don’t like about retiring in Bigfork is that their family is 400 miles away, but they plan on celebrating their anniversary with their family in July along with Pat’s 80th birthday. Their daughter, Kay, her husband, Ray Scholes, and grandson Randy live in Washington as do their son Curtis and granddaughter Rachael Pederson.

They moved to Bigfork in 1994 after building their home along the Swan River near the new bridge in Ferndale. Prior to that they frequently vacationed in the Bigfork area. They finally moved to Bigfork from Walla Walla, Wash.

Their advice to newlyweds hoping to also celebrate a 60th anniversary is to listen to each other and to talk about their problems.

“I can’t believe it is here already” Pat said. “The time has gone so fast.”