It has been 60 happy, memorable years of marriage for Phil and Pietie Vos.
The Marlands couple celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary on Thursday, and are looking forward to more years together.
Phil (83) and Pietie (81) met when Phil came to Pietie’s home, looking for a place to stay.
“My mother took him in as a boarder and we got together,” said Pietie.
They courted for about a year and got engaged in 1953.
Then, on January 23, 1954, they tied the knot in the NG Kerk, in Germiston.
“Pietie actually wanted to get married after her 21st birthday, on January 27, but we couldn’t get the hall, so we married just before her birthday,” Phil said.
Phil completed his school years in Rustenberg and then worked on a farm for a number of years.
He then worked at the Boksburg Police Station for two years, then on the mines and, finally, as a clerk for the SA Railways, until he retired.
Pietie was born and raised in Germiston and completed her schooling at Afrikaanse Hoërskool Germiston.
She worked in her brother Hendrik Greyling’s café, in Overton, for two years and then at the Department of Labour for 13 years.
After that she worked at Woolworths for about two years.
Pietie gave up work after she fell pregnant with the couple’s twins.
The couple has three children, the twins, Carel Vos and Rina Britz, and a second son, Cobus.
They have six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
In his younger years Phil was an avid rugby player for both the Germiston and Elsburg clubs.
Nowadays he enjoys gardening and likes to help at his church’s butchery once a month, where they prepare and sell meat as a fund-raising initiative.
Pietie loves baking and dressmaking and is particularly good at making wedding dresses.
The couple loves to spend time with their family.
The GCN asked what advice they would give to young couples just starting out their married lives and Pietie said they must be good to one another and love one another.
Phil added that they should always listen to and respect each other.
The couple has lived in the Marlands area for the past 50 years and Phil said that his neighbours on both sides have been there for the same amount of time.
“Our children have grown up together and it’s nice to have such long-standing neighbours,” he added.
