Andersons celebrate 70 years yearsanniversary

A celebration of the 70-year marriage of Bob and Shirley Anderson will be held from noon to 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 23, at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Kalispell. Friends and family are welcome to a luncheon reception.

Bob was a Marine dive-bomber pilot in World War II and had returned home to Denver to attend Colorado State University where he received a degree in engineering. Shirley was operating a restaurant where Bob and fellow returned veterans would come to eat.

The couple were engaged a week after meeting and married Sept. 22, 1948, at Shirley’s mountain home in Colorado.

Bob’s work entailed many moves including Missoula, Enumclaw, Washington, Pilot Rock, Oregon, and Denver. Retirement brought them back to Montana where Bob had spent a post-war summer as superintendent of a road crew on the Going-to-the Sun Highway.

His one-room cabin at Lake McDonald was a haven where he enjoyed his lifelong love of trout fishing. In 1990, after nine retirement years in St. Regis, they chose to move to Kalispell where Bob had traveled as a sales representative years ago. They enjoyed 25 years on their Helena Flats property before moving to Buffalo Hill Terrace in 2016.

The Andersons have two daughters, Karen Mercaldo and Kris Anderson, daughter-in-law Sharon, son Nels, four grandchildren and one great-grandchild.