Plenty has changed over the past seven decades, but one Red Deer couple has stood by each other’s side all that time.
George and Katherine Goruk, 89 and 86, respectively, celebrated their 70th anniversary Wednesday.
It wasn’t necessarily love at first sight, Katherine said.
The two met in their early teens in Edwand, Katherine’s small hometown, about 132 km northeast of Edmonton, when Katherine and her sister were chasing cattle on horseback. George and his friends decided to hide in a ditch and scare Katherine, her sister and the horses.
“When we finally got the cattle back home, I said to my mom, ‘I hate that George Goruk.’ My sister said, ‘Yeah we just about fell off our horses,’ ” Katherine said.
The two met again a couple years later while Katherine was looking after a school teacher’s children in Bellis, now part of the Municipal District of Vilna, 139 km northeast of Edmonton.
Bellis is George’s hometown, and about 15 kilometres from Edwand.
“He bought a car and he drove all of us to different towns for dances and it just sort of happened after that,” she said.
George said it didn’t take long for him to realize he wanted to marry Katherine.
“We really fell in love when she was 16 and I was 19. We were together from then on and things went real well,” he said.
Katherine said everyone asks them what the secret to a long-lasting marriage is.
“We aren’t sure what the secret is – we’ve just lived our lives the best we could,” he said.
George worked in the oil industry in 1950 and retired in 1994 – he was later inducted into the Canadian Petroleum Hall of Fame. He said there is no secret to marriage – you just have to work hard for each other.
“We worked together and found we’re pretty good partners. If you don’t work together, you start to worry about each other, and I think that’s where problems start,” he said.
This weekend the couple will celebrate their anniversary with friends and family members at a banquet dinner. Katherine said she was surprised so many people wanted to come.
“We didn’t think (the anniversary) was a big deal,” she said.
“But everyone’s been saying, ‘What do you mean it’s not a big deal? Of course it is. How many people do you know that have been married 70 years?’ When you stop and think about it, you really don’t know that many,” she said.
George and Katherine have three sons, 19 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. The Goruks live in Red Deer, and they own a farm west of Sylvan Lake, which they’ve had since 1972.
sean.mcintosh@reddeeradvocate.com
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