Long Marriages

It seems I have in my family history many very long marriages.
My Great grandparents Phillip and Ellen Goodwin were married for more than 70 years!

The Journalling on this layout reads:
Just about to celebrate 70 years of marriage, Mr Phillip Goodwin says the secret lies in the old cliche, “early to bed, early to rise”.He is aged 96 and his wife Ellen is aged 91. They had a quite wedding in a country church near Matamata on January 6 “way back in 1909”.
In their Mt Albert unit, Mr and Mrs Goodwin still have fresh vegetables from their own garden. There are no meals on wheels for this couple. Mrs Goodwin still cooks and sews. And with eight grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren, there are plenty to sew for.
On Saturday the Goodwins will celebrate with a family get together for afternoon tea. No alcohol for the couple - they would like to get to their 75th anniversary. Retirement to Auckland in 1945 did not mean a life of leisure for Mr Goodwin. Until he was 90 he helped his youngest sun in business.
sadly they did not make 75 years of marriage.
Nanna slipped and fell breaking her hip the
following year and died soon after .
Phillip, known to everyone as Da lived until
1986, aged an incredible 103.
 
and another set of Great Grandparents were married more than 50 years.

Journalling here reads:
Mr and Mrs W McClellan, Newton, who celebrate their golden wedding today, have lived in Wellington for most of the fifty years of their marriage which took place in Newtown on November 7 1900.Mrs McClellan was formerly Mrs Annie Elizabeth Grant.
Mr McClellan was well known in the newspaper printing trade being assicated with the "New Zealand Times" as a linotype operator: later he joined the "Hawera Star" and "Taihape Daily Times". On returning to Wellington he joined the staff of Henry Tombs Lt. being with this firm for approximately 25 years until his retirement.
Both in Wellington and Taranaki, Mr McClellan has taken a deep interest in music, He was one of the earliest members of the Brooklyn Glee Club which became the Wellington Harmonic Society and was an early conductor of the Central Mission Band in Wellington, of the Hawera Band , and both the men’s and women's choirs in Hawera. He was choirmaster of the Trinity Church Choir, Newtown for 20 years. Mr and Mrs McClellan have four children and seven grandchildren. There was a large gathering of friends and relatives in the Rio Grande Hall Mirimar, last night, to celebrate the wedding
My journalling - I would have loved to be a fly on the wall at this event, the Golden wedding anniversary of my Great Grandparents William and Annie McClellan. They were married at the turn of the last century in 1900, so this event must have been in 1950. Annie died not long after this, in 1953, and William survived another 12 years dying in 1965, after i was born, though i never met him.
 
I recently found a newspaper article from 1928 which mentions the diamond wedding anniversary of another set of ancestors, Elizabeth Middlebrook and George Douglas Hardy.

 
It seems that George was at one time chief attendant for the Whau Lunatic Asylum in Avondale Auckland, in the  late years of the 19th century.He later became a tea trader.  Clearly a very interesting man I believe I must do some more research on him soon!!