Couple shares key to marriage success
THE first time Margaret McNamara laid eyes on her future husband, Terry McNamara, she was about 12 years old.
She was catching the bus to school at Oakey and this boy a few years older than her caught the bus from Jondaryan to go to his Year 8 rural wood work classes.
“I remembered him because he always got into fights on the bus,” she said.
It wasn’t until she was 17 that the two started going to dances together.
“He used to dance with me and turn on the charm,” she said.
They soon started dating and 12 months after that, on the Carnival of Flowers Saturday in 1964, he popped the question.
Mr and Mrs McNamara, who celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary this month, were married on December 17, 1966 in St Anthony’s Catholic Church in Toowoomba by Father Kev Ryan from St Monica’s Catholic Church in Oakey.
“We were the first ‘country wedding’ there as the church hadn’t been operating for long,” Mrs McNamara said.
The couple travelled to The Beach House in Coolongatta for their honeymoon, as it was “the place to go”.
Mr and Mrs McNamara lived at Dalby, as that was where Mr McNamara was working at the time.
They spent two and a half years there and their two children, Matthew and Wendy, were born in 1967 and 1968.
After Dalby, the family moved to Mt Isa, where they lived in a caravan before buying a house.
Mr McNamara owned an engineering business and Mrs McNamara worked at Mt Isa Brickworks.
The McNamaras spent 23 years in Mt Isa before moving to Highfields, where Mr McNamara was a house builder and Mrs McNamara had a social security job.
After retiring, Mrs McNamara went back to what she enjoyed as a child patchwork and sewing - and Mr McNamara pursued his passion for restoring old machinery.
The couple has three grandchildren - Hannah, 12, Mitchell, 12, and Elsie, 9.
They have both done their share of travelling - they went to Bahrain to see their daughter Wendy, who was a flight attendant, be married.
“We’ve been to Dubai, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and the Pacific Islands too,” Mrs McNamara said.
“I’ve been to London and Ireland too and we’ve travelled all over Australia.”
Mrs McNamara said the secret to a happy marriage was to “remember the vows you took on your wedding day”.
She also said having family support and their religious beliefs kept them together.
The couple enjoyed a dinner on their anniversary with some of their family and will celebrate for a second time during a family reunion at the Bunya Mountains in January.