The Record journalist Bridget Spinks found a couple celebrating their diamond jubilee who not only pulled through the tough times but came out stronger through Marriage Encounter.
Bibra Lake couple Con Stacey and Beryl Bowden celebrated their diamond wedding jubilee on 29 November thanks to a Marriage Encounter weekend they attended more than 30 years ago.
Marriage Encounter is a weekend away for couples who value their marriage and wish to rediscover the person with whom they fell in love.
When they found that after 20 odd years of marriage they had their own interests, were starting to drift and weren’t communicating, Con and Beryl went on a Marriage Encounter weekend away. It played a big part in their continuing to have a happy marriage, they said.
“People who are having problems would be well-advised to go there,” Beryl said.
During the weekend, with help from a trained team and a priest, couples learn and have the opportunity to practise the art of dialogue.
Fr Bernie Dwyer, a friend they first met in Wagin, encouraged them to go along. He was involved with the Marriage Encounter Movement for 16 years and was involved in bringing the movement to Australia.
During their 60-year marriage, Con and Beryl have been very active in the community.
Con lectured in chemistry at Perth Technical College, then later at the West Australian Institute of Technology (WAIT), which became Curtin University.
For over 50 years Con has been dedicated to rowing: first as a rower at Aquinas, then as a Kings Cup oarsman and later as a coach.
He coached rowing at Aquinas College and in 1969 became the founding president of the West Australian Institute Rowing Club, a role he held for 26 years during which time the club became the Curtin University Boat Club.
He coached various crews including two state women’s crews and three state youth eights and, when the Curtin University boat shed was built in the mid 1970s on the Canning River, it was named Stacey Boat House in his honour.
For Con, whose father died when he was five months old, the six years of education at Aquinas made a lasting impact on his life, as it was here that he began to appreciate Catholicism.
There was no one chaplain at Aquinas he could credit with his becoming a Catholic; it was rather the male atmosphere, that the Brothers accepted him and that there was no pressure on him to learn about the faith, he said.
He was allowed to sit quietly and could go on with his own work during Religion classes or he was welcome to listen.
“I was quite impressed with what the Christian Brothers were doing,” he said.
“They were strict. One thing they taught me was that I’m responsible for my own actions. I was a bit of a slow learner and I got the strap quite frequently, but that was all part of the game as far as I was concerned and it was us against them. They won some, we won some.
“I have a great deal of time for what they did. Then I met up with this young lady and became a Catholic. I thought why not? Bring the kids up that way and it didn’t take much to push me that way after I’d been at the school.”
In 1972-73, Con became head of the Old Aquinians Association, and in solidarity, Beryl supported her husband and became head of the Old Aquinians Ladies Auxiliary.
Con said that being a Catholic has helped him a lot.
When they were first married they attended the Our Lady Help of Christians Parish in East Victoria Park.
When they moved to Mount Pleasant, they joined St Benedict’s Applecross parish and Con joined the Legion of Mary, the Holy Name Society and served on the Parish Council.
After moving to Bull Creek, the couple joined Willetton parish for 26 years where Con became involved with the St Vincent de Paul Society and chaired the parish refugee settlement scheme.
Although Con and Beryl now live in Bateman, they still call Willetton parish home.
They agree that being Catholic helped in their marriage as well.
“The fact that I had made vows when I married; they were vows I intended to keep and I’ve tried to keep them,” Con said.
Beryl too had a strong desire to honour her wedding vows.
“As the marriage goes on, you think I committed myself to this; I have to make it work. And also you don’t want to see a big upheaval in the family, between your children and yourself, and you do something to try and make it work, and that’s why we were lucky with getting onto Marriage Encounter,” Beryl said.
Con and Beryl were engaged for two and a half years before they finally married, in which time they were able to get to know each other and finish their degrees.
Con still remembers the first day he caught sight of Beryl.
It was 1946, on an orientation day, he said. They were on opposite sides of Winthrop Hall up on the top balcony.
“I saw this girl from across the other side, and I said to my friend, ‘Now there’s a good looking girl.’”
They ended up taking the same course in chemistry until Beryl discovered that she wasn’t compatible with chemistry and changed to study mathematics.
Two years after they married on 29 November 1950 at St Mary’s Cathedral, they welcomed their first daughter, Sharon, who is now director of administration at Loreto College in Adelaide; then Michael, who is now a professor of surgery at Fremantle and Murdoch hospitals.
Then along came Chris, a chartered accountant who runs his own practice; and Joanne, who is the clinical coordinator for the school of physiotherapy at the University of Notre Dame.
In 1950 when she married, Beryl was required to resign from her government job in the Taxation Department.
She eventually rejoined the workforce, initially on a very part time basis, when Joanne was three.
Her entry into teaching began as a favour when she was asked to help teach maths for two hours a day at Our Lady of Fatima primary school, Palmyra which was run by the Our Lady of the Mission sisters until 1991.
“I was always at home when the children would get home from school or else I’d pick them up,” she said. “I didn’t go full time teaching until Sharon, my eldest, was doing her leaving and they were all at school.”
“The nuns that I worked with were very considerate for the fact that I had four children” she said, adding that if it arose that the children had to come before work, she was able to prioritise them which helped her a lot. “It started off as me doing a favour for them, but in the end they were doing a favour for me, having me there.”
Then, just as Sharon was reaching high school age, the Our Lady of the Missions Sisters opened a high school called Our Lady of the Missions in East Fremantle.
Beryl became deputy principal there and later worked at CBC (Christian Brothers College) Fremantle as head of mathematics.
Since retiring in 1987, Con and Beryl have travelled around Australia and overseas, lectured and studied at the University of the Third Age and worked for several years as volunteers in the Cathedral Archives.
“We’ve got to know each other more in retirement because where we were doing more things almost separately before, when we retired we started to do more things together,” Con said. The couple have 14 grandchildren, a great-granddaughter and another great-grandchild on the way.
Since the 1980s they have been researching their genealogy and more recently writing their individual life stories, in the hope that they may be of value to posterity and those who, like them, might want to know something of their ancestors.
Worldwide Marriage Encounter is for all couples who value their marriage. Why settle for a good marriage when you can have a great marriage? For information about Worldwide Marriage Encounter in Australia, visit http://www.wwme.org.au. call 0424 220 625 or email
WABookings@wwme.org.au.