Hovelands celebrate 70th wedding anniversary

By LeAnn R. Ralph

COLFAX  —  A 70th wedding anniversary is a milestone worthy of celebration.

Ardys (Maukstad) and Vernoid Hoveland celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary the afternoon of August 17 with an anniversary cake and a get-together with friends and family at The Square at the Colfax Health and Rehabilitation Center.

Ardys and Vern are residents in the assisted living units at Sandy Ridge Apartments at CHRC.

“We had our 25th wedding anniversary in Shawano. We moved back here in 1985, and in 1986 we had a party at the bowling alley here for our 40th. We had parties on the 40th, 50th, 60th, 65th and 70th. This one (for the 70th), that’s it! No more parties!” Vern said with a laugh.

“You kind of get out of the idea of having parties after awhile,” Ardys said.

“Three of them we put on dinners for,” Vern noted.

Ardys and Vern were married August 17, 1946, at Holden Lutheran Church.

Ardys was baptized at Holden Church, has been a lifelong member there and grew up on a farm in the Town of Grant.

“My mother passed away when I was just a few months old. I was brought up by my grandmother,” Ardys said.

The Hovelands met in 1943 in Sand Creek at the wedding of Vern’s sister, Aldred, to Ardys’s cousin, Talvin Gunderson.

At the time, Vern was serving in World War II in the United States Army and had come home for his sister’s wedding.

Vern was 18, and Ardys was 19, and they both say it was love at first sight.

Vern grew up in Sand Creek, and during grade school, he stayed with his grandparents.

“I went to my grandma’s on my mother’s side and helped with the milking,” he said.

While Vern was a senior in high school at Chetek, he drove a school bus. He earned $1 per day for driving the bus route.

He also drove a milk truck. The regular driver would make two trips during the day.

“I would get done with school, then I would take that and get another load. The guy at the creamery would unload it so I could go home right away and study my lessons. I did that several months and got $2 a day for that. I was making $3 a day!” Vern said.

After his sister’s wedding, Vern returned to duty in Europe, and for the next three years, Vern and Ardys wrote letters to each other.

Vern was discharged from the Army in April (he recalls that it was April 9, 1946), and they were married a few months later in August.

Wedding gown

After all of these years and all of the moving around, Ardys still has her wedding dress.

“We’ve been carrying it around for the last 70 years,” Ardys said.

“But I don’t have my suit yet,” Vern added.

Ardys purchased her wedding dress — a stunning and elegantly simple white satin gown with a train that could be arranged in a fan shape around her feet for photographs — in Minneapolis.

“I had looked in Eau Claire at the time and couldn’t find anything, so we went to Minneapolis,” Ardys said.

Not long after they were married, Vern started an apprenticeship with the Bremer Funeral Home in Colfax.

And not long after that, Vern decided the funeral home business was not for him — not because of the nature of the work, necessarily, but because he was on-call for 24 hours a day.

Ardys noted that Mrs. Bremer had beautiful voice and had sang at their wedding.

Vern went into business with his father for a while in Sand Creek, and at the end of the winter in 1947, Vern’s brother bought out Vern’s share, and then Vern and Ardys moved to California where he was employed in a woodworking factory making garage doors.

Milwaukee

Vern and Ardys moved to Milwaukee in 1948, where Vern found a job with Phenix Sash and Door. Ardys took a job with the American Lease Paper Company.

When they first moved to Milwaukee, housing was extremely scarce.

“We had a sleeping room. That was all we could find,” Vern said.

Vern’s sister and brother-in-law moved to Milwaukee, too.

“Every Saturday night we’d pick up the newspaper, and then out Sunday morning we went, looking for places to live,” Vern said.

Vern and his brother-in-law worked at the same place, and Ardys and Vern’s sister worked at the same place.

“After work, we’d go out to eat. We’d find different places to eat for supper. We’d play cards at night,” Vern said.

“On Saturday night, they’d get the paper, too,” he said.

“After a year or so, we started looking for a place to buy. In the meantime, I was working part-time too. I had the full-time job, and I was working part-time for a guy who would buy old duplexes and remodel them into four-plexes. I worked nights until 9:30 or 10:00. This guy’s wife worked at Phenix, so that’s we got connected,” Vern said.

Phenix Sash and Door moved to Shawano in 1964, and Vern and Ardys also moved to Shawano.

They lived in Shawano for 20 years. Ardys worked at the Shawano City Hall as a secretary.

Vern retired from Phenix on June 1, 1985.

The Hovelands then bought a home on Lake Chetek.

A love of travel

Over the years, Vern and Ardys traveled extensively. When Vern was working, he would save up his vacation, and they would spend his vacation during the winter in Florida or in Arizona.

After they retired, they spent more of their winters in Arizona.

The Hovelands have been to New England, Texas, Hawaii, Canada, Alaska, Scandinavia and to the Panama Canal.

“I don’t know if she knew what she was getting herself into, because I loved to travel. But it ended up, she loved it too,” Vern said.

For many years, the Hovelands attended the Norsk Hostfest in Minot, North Dakota, an annual festival held each fall. Described as North America’s largest Scandinavian festival, the 39th Hostfest will be held this fall.

Vern and Ardys would go to Hostfest, and then they would head to Arizona from there.

Valentine’s Day

In 2006, not long before they moved to Colfax, Vern had arranged for the Chetek Alert to write a story about them for a Valentine’s Day edition.

The year 2006 was Vern and Ardys’s first winter in Wisconsin since 1984.

Vern said he wanted their story published in the Chetek Alert because all of the members of their wedding party were still alive at that time.

Now they are all gone except a couple of them, Vern and Ardys noted.

After the Hovelands moved to Colfax, for quite a few years, they lived in one of duplexes on Park Drive.

The decision to move to Colfax was based on the availability of an apartment.

“We said whichever one called us first, that’s where we would live,” Vern explained.

As it turned out, the duplex in Colfax was available first.

They decided to move to the Sandy Ridge Apartments when it became more difficult for them to do daily tasks.

“Now we can sit home and think about what we have done,” Ardys said.

“We have a lot of good memories of going different places,” Vern said.

“We have been so fortunate over the years,” Ardys said.

“Very fortunate,” Vern said.

So what’s next for Vernoid and Ardys Hoveland?

Well, there is the presidential election to look forward to, for one thing.

At the last election in 2012, Vern thought it would be the last election in which he would vote.

“But here we are again, and I think we might make it (to vote in the November election). Nowadays, one never knows. But we’re both in relatively good health,” Vern said.

Although the Hovelands never had any children of their own, they are pleased to say that they have 32 nieces and nephews.