It was a cold evening in the fall of 1943 when Violet Kosinski was invited by a girlfriend to go to a barn dance in Manitoba.
“She talked me into going that night and I really didn’t want to. I had worked all day.”
It was when Violet got to the dance that she noticed Roy, who was standing behind a stove getting warm.
“I looked over, and he looked over and that was it… We danced for the rest of the night,” Violet said of the man she would marry six months later.
Roy and Violet Kosinski married on April 29, 1944 in Winnipeg.
Next month, they will be celebrating their 75th wedding anniversary at a dinner with their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Roy, 97, and Violet, 94, have two children, six grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
“It’s quite a big family out of two children,” Violet said. “Each grandchild was something wonderful, and each great-grandchild was something wonderful. it was a very nice life.”
”And the two children were very good,” Roy said.
Asked what the key is to staying married for so long, Violet said, “A sense of humour – a good one.”
For Roy: “Nobody can live that long without an argument once in a while, but you get over that and carry on.”
Roy was in the Canadian airforce when he met Violet, she said.
“Well he was in the service, you never knew if they were supposed to go overseas and things changed… They were shipped all over Canada. You didn’t know what you were going to do; if you were going overseas or going to work here,” Violet said.
As it turned out, Roy was kept in Canada with the two moved out to B.C. shortly after getting married.
Violet said they first moved to Vancouver, and eventually bought a house that they lived in for 40 years, raising their children, Bob and Barb, in the house.
Then they settled in Surrey about 27 years ago in a house in Fleetwood.
Once Roy retired, Violet said, the two travelled “pretty well all over the world.” Some of the places included Morocco, Porugal, Spain, Italy, the Greek islands, Russia and England – for the 50th commemoration of D-Day.
“I liked Rome. I really did. There was so much to do and see there; so much history. I like the Greek Islands, too, and Turkey,” Violet said.
Now the two, while not travelling all over the world anymore, are still living on their own in the same house in Fleetwood – even making trips to Costco every so often.
Asked what it’s like to celebrate such a milestone anniversary, Violet said, “We’ve celebrated so many of them, it doesn’t seem like anything different. Seventy-five, you know, that’s quite a few.”
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lauren.collins@surreynowleader.com
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