The farmer takes a wife

(I’m celebrating Valentine’s Day week by featuring some really amazing couples. I hope you enjoy meeting them as much as I enjoy telling their stories. I’m kicking the week off with two of the best people I know…)

Uncle Herbie celebrated all week when Roy Fischer married Mary Ellen Gunderson on Feb. 27, 1965.

He knew a good thing when he saw it.

This year, the Fischers will celebrate their 60th anniversary, a diamond jubilee for a couple who knew early on how to make the most of fertile ground.

They raised five children, ran a successful dairy farm and epitomized the kind of work ethic that made all of that possible.

These days, the Fischers have 11 grandchildren, six great-grandchildren and a life they love. 

It all started at the Bamboo Bar.

Roy drove over one night with a group of friends.

“We all threw in a dollar for gas and when we came home we had more gas than when we left,” he said.

Mary Ellen also showed up at the bar with friends. She had graduated early from Bonduel High School and found a job in Green Bay working for the Nielsen Research Company. She didn’t have a car, so she lived in an apartment in Green Bay during the week and came home on the weekends.

She rode to the Bamboo Bar that fateful night with her roommates.

Roy said he spotted her for the first time from across the bar. She maintains he had seen her before.

“I’d been to his house before that,” she said. “He didn’t remember that at all. I was there for his sister’s graduation party.”

He might not have remembered seeing Mary Ellen at his sister Beverly’s graduation party, but he definitely remembers seeing her that night at the Bamboo Bar, and he headed right over to say hello.

Their courtship progressed pretty quickly from there. It needed to if they wanted to chat.

“He would never call me because he was on a party line and everyone would listen,” Mary Ellen said. “So we didn’t talk during the week.”

Nine months after their first date, Roy and Mary Ellen married in a lovely Lutheran ceremony, followed by a raucous celebration.

“We went through seven half barrels,” Roy said. “We had a good time. The Leonard Wolf Polka Band played.”

At the time, Roy was earning $25 a week driving a milk truck and working on his family’s dairy farm. So, the young couple moved in with Roy’s parents, which worked out well.

Both families approved of the marriage, though Mary Ellen’s mother had to get over the fact that her daughter had converted from Catholicism to marry her love.

“I turned Lutheran and she didn’t like that,” Mary Ellen said.

They’ve lived on the farm ever since.

“My dad always teased me,” Mary Ellen said. “He said, ‘You’re going to marry an old farmer.’ And I’d get mad at him.’”

Happy Anniversary month Roy and Mary Ellen and congratulations on the big, beautiful family you’ve raised!