Simple nuptials last a lifetime
Edge Hill couple Margery and Kevin Duffy (above) will today celebrate their diamond wedding anniversary.
SATURDAY night dances were part of the social fabric in country Queensland when Margery Gahan moved to Proserpine in 1955 to take up a job at the local sugar mill.
“I was a cane tester, or check chemist, at the mill and worked in the laboratory,” Marge says.
On her first Saturday in Proserpine, the then 19-yearold joined a group of others and headed to nearby Strathdickie.
“There was a dance every week at one of the outlying halls and it was Strathdickie’s turn on this particular night,” Marge says.
It was there that she met Kevin Duffy, also 19 and sole teacher at Strathdickie’s small school.
“It was not quite love at first sight, but we said we would meet again at the next dance,” Kev recalls. “Within a couple of months, we were going out regularly.”
Today, the Edge Hill couple will celebrate their diamond wedding anniversary and mark the 60 years since they married in a nuptial mass at Holy Rosary Church at Bundaberg on May 6, 1957.
“We had to get up early,” Marge says. “The mass was at 8.30 in the morning.”
The simplicity of their wedding made the early start manageable.
“There wasn’t quite the palaver with make-up and photographers,” Marge says. “But it was a very special day.
“We were married on a Monday, Labour Day. We couldn’t manage a Saturday because Kev couldn’t get down to Bundaberg in time after school. He came down by train.”
Kev and Marge spent their honeymoon in Maryborough and moved to Cairns the same year when Kev was transferred to Balaclava State School.
“I had a Grade 4 class that went up to 65 pupils by the end of the year,” Kev says. “I had Grade 7 in 1958 and in 1959 I had a scholarship class — the equivalent of Grade 8.”
Three schools in Cairns couldn’t send their kids to Cairns High so Kev says he taught the only scholarship class through Balaclava.
In 1960 he transferred to the city’s newest school, Trinity Bay State High, where he taught maths and science for more than 30 years. Marge, meanwhile, turned her love of violin into a career as a music teacher in the city’s schools, while raising their four children — Teresa, Maureen, Catherine and Kevin.
The couple, now 81, will mark their anniversary today with a mass at St Monica’s Cathedral, celebrated by Fr Pat McKenna, and will share breakfast and dinner with family.