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Celebrating marriage

By Merrill Ogden - | Apr 6, 2022

I happened to see a segment on Fox13 News recently about Allen and Evelyn Frandsen of Centerfield. The Sanpete couple celebrated their 80th wedding anniversary. That makes them the longest-married couple in the state of Utah.

Here’s the link if you’re interested in seeing and/or reading the piece about them: https://bit.ly/3j7uqiI. I know there was something about them on KSL, and probably other media sources, as well.

It was especially interesting to me because Mrs. Frandsen taught business classes at Richfield High School when I was there doing my best to pretend to be a good student. My student life of studying for tests, writing papers, and doing assignments otherwise was lived by the philosophy, “If it weren’t for the last minute, nothing would ever get done.” (That’s pretty much how it goes even now)

Allen is 102 years old. Evelyn is 101. It’s really amazing. When asked about their long, successful marriage, Allen said, “It depends on the attitude. If you want to succeed you can; if you don’t care, you probably won’t. I want to always do things to make her happy. She always wanted to do things to make me happy.”

That sounds like good advice to me. Here’s some additional marriage advice I’ve seen from others:

“A man in love is incomplete until he has married — then he is finished.” — Zsa Zsa Gabor

“After seven years of marriage, I’m sure of two things — first, never wallpaper together, and second you’ll need two bathrooms — both for her. The rest is a mystery, but a mystery I love to be involved in.” — Dennis Miller

“Marriage should be a duet. When one sings, the other claps.” — Joe Murray

“To keep your marriage brimming, with love in the wedding cup; whenever you’re wrong, admit it; whenever you’re right, shut up.” — Ogden Nash

“I love being married. It’s so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.” — Rita Rudner

“My most brilliant achievement was my ability to persuade my wife to marry me.” — Winston Churchill

Many of you readers who are a bit older (and, as I think of it, I suspect that the entire readership of this column is “older”) will remember the wedding scene from the 1987 movie “The Princess Bride.”

“Mawidge. Mawidge is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawidge, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam… and wuv, tru wuv, will fowow you foweva…so tweasure your wuv…”

Perhaps a tiny bit of translation help is in order: Mawidge = Marriage, Wuv = Love. If you’ve never seen the show or read the book, it’s worth it — if you’re up for a satirical fantasy romance.

An interesting marriage in my “family tree” is that of my grandfather, my dad’s dad, Frank Ogden, of Richfield. He married Eleanor Ward from Parowan in the Manti Temple in January of 1902. There was no honeymoon to speak of for that couple. After the marriage, Frank was immediately called on an LDS mission to the Southern States.

He sold his team of horses and some timber that he owned and was off and away for a couple of years. His new bride was left behind and taught school. Frank returned home in time for Christmas of 1903. In September of 1904, their first child was born. You’ve heard the saying that “September babies are Christmas presents,” right?

All marriages have their stories and most are interesting. My wife’s parents essentially eloped during World War II. Having only known each other for a couple of weeks or so, they had just a very few days of “wedded bliss” before Jim shipped out for a year of service in India and Burma.

As for my marriage, it’s always interesting. We’re hitting the 43rd anniversary mark this month. I could be wrong, but I don’t think the TV stations will be covering our special day.

It’s not a milestone number, so we’ll probably just go find dinner somewhere and clink our water and Diet Pepsi glasses together (water her, Pepsi me) and renew our “bwessed awangment” for another year.

When we hit our 25th anniversary, that was a milestone. I semi-reluctantly consented to go on a Caribbean cruise to celebrate our achievement. My reluctance was ill-placed and I really enjoyed the cruise vacation.

As I observe marriages in Sanpete, I see what looks like many strong, healthy relationships. I see lots of couples who are role models for long term successful marriages, with the Frandsen “love birds” topping the list.

I’m thinking that maybe we should arrange for a special cruise, especially for Sanpeters, in celebration of dozens or hundreds of wedding anniversaries. The actual date of your anniversary wouldn’t matter. The vacation would celebrate all of the marriages regardless.

On second thought, maybe I don’t want that many people I know to see me in a swimming suit. And there’s a few of you that perhaps I shouldn’t see in a swimming suit either. We’ll have to mull this idea over a little.

Once more – Congrats to the Frandsens! — Merrill

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