Mere meters from where more than 70 years earlier a 16-year-old Don promised his girlfriend that he’d build her a cottage, Don and Evelyn Benson renewed their vows on Keats Island Aug. 26.
The Bensons celebrated their 70th anniversary with their traditional salmon BBQ (they have held the annual event since about their 37th anniversary says Evelyn – those who can’t make it to the BBQ at least make it to the karaoke) on the island each has been visiting since childhood.
The couple’s five children and most of their nine grandchildren were in attendance. The 2023 ceremony’s officiant was their now 74-year-old nephew who was their ring bearer in 1953 – he flew in from Tennessee for the occasion. Their flower girl was the couple’s youngest great-granddaughter, Evelyn.
“We planned a couple of years ago that if we made it to 70, we'd have a big to do,” Evelyn said, and made it they did.
Seventy did feel different, said Evelyn – it was smaller as they have lost many of their friends.
The couple spends much of the year in New Westminster, where they met at the Duke of Connaught High School in Grade 10, and living in a home that’s housed five generations of their family. (And from where Evelyn talked with Coast Reporter, with Don weighing in.)
Evelyn first came to Keats to attend the Baptist camp when she was nine years old. “And I've been coming ever since,” said Evelyn. “If you're ever a camper on Keats, you’re a camper forever,” she said.
Don started going to Gambier Island when he was nine or 10 and at about 15 dropped out of school to go logging with his uncle, who had a business on the island. The guys on the logging crew urged him to go back to school – and good thing he did, that’s where he met Evelyn.
He ended up visiting her at the senior girls’ camp and they went on a long walk. Evelyn commented that a lot of her friends were lucky – they didn’t have to go home, they would just go down the path to their summer cottages. “And Don says, ‘Well, I promise you that someday, I'll build you a cottage on Keats Island,” remembered Evelyn. “He kept his promise.”
The Bensons’ honeymoon was on a rental home on the island and they often returned, staying with friends, in rental cabins, then building a house on the Baptist camp property (which tragically burned) and finally buying their current place in 1981.
Following their retirement 35 years ago, the Bensons would spend six months on the island and six months on the mainland, but in more recent years, shorter stays have been required because of health appointments and the like.
“We think of Keats Island as our home, as well as New Westminster as our home,” said Evelyn.
What’s the secret to such a long marriage? “Well, first of all, you if you marry your best friend, that's that's a good start,” says Evelyn. The two started dating in about Grade 10 and were married after she finished teacher training – she was 19, he was 20. “A lot of people at the time said, ‘Oh, they're so young, it will never last,” she said. “And it has lasted.”
