UBC Alumni Affairs
Matt and Florence on their wedding day in 1954
It started with a Calgary-to-Vancouver train ride in December 1951. Now the world has four children and 12 grandchildren with our name, of which four are Prof. Engineers (Petroleum, Chemical, and Civil), one has a bachelor of Fine Arts, and three are university students.
It went something like this. I saw this beautiful, dark-haired, brown-eyed girl when I got on the train at Calgary to go to UBC in December 1951. I nodded at her and that was it.
I saw her again outside the Physics Building – January 1952, skipped my Physics 200 class and invited her for coffee in the Brock Hall cafe. I saw her again in the Women’s Common Room at Acadia Camp- September 1952. We spoke trivialities because we were under the watchful eye of a Miss Chang, Women’s chaperone at Acadia Women’s residence. (Yes, university appointed chaperones did exist.)
My group of male friends and her female friends played bridge that year in the Common Room. In September 1952, we started dating for movies and dances at the Brock Hall. She graduated in May 1953.
We got married in August 1954 and rented a room-sized living space on 5913 Agronomy Road from Shum’s University Student Housing. This set us up for success. Shum’s slums, at $11 per month, saved us.
I graduated in 1956 and from then on, we never looked back. We lived in Vancouver; Kingston; Petawawa; Roseau, Dominica, West Indies and Calgary. Today, we are retired in Calgary with ten grandchildren living within three miles from us. Life could not be better.
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