TO many passers-by, Eva Towler is simply that nice lady who sits patiently outside the pharmacy or the IGA on Merriwa’s Bettington Street, selling raffle tickets.
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She’s often raising funds for charities and community groups and smiles pleasantly as she knits or crochets.
However, if you’ve seen Eva recently, you would have noticed that her smile has got an extra little sparkle.
Eva and her husband Raymond (most commonly known as “Mick”) celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary on Boxing Day 2017.
“I’d left school at 15 and began working as a housekeeper and at the local bakery owned by Freddy Johnson,” she said.
“My job at the bakery was to prepare the mail order bread and that’s when I first met him.
“‘Him’, of course, was a young Mick Towler, who was working on a property called ‘Wendouree’ on Cullingral Road.
“Mick used to come into town in the mornings to collect Mr Whitelaw’s bread from the bakery and take it back to him at Wendouree – we didn’t say much to each other”.
So with no social media, computers or mobile phones, how did people connect?
Eva scoffed at the naivety of the above question and replied; “Young people went dancing.
“Every Thursday there’d be a dance at the Anglican Parish Hall.
“We’d be barn dancing so everyone got to know each other as we’d change partners.
“We were just friends and I thought he looked alright (and he still looks alright) and when I was around 18, he asked my parents of he could take me to the dance and we got closer.
“We started dating in 1953 and we used to drive around in his Holden that he’d bought at Scone.
“We’d play golf, lawn bowls and tennis and we also went to the pictures at the old Astra Theatre in town.
“I’d left the bakery and was working in the hardware section of Campbells Department Store (site of the current IGA Merriwa) and Mick was working with the shire (Merriwa Shire Council) and one day Mick said to me; ‘I think we’ve been going out long enough – how about it?’
“And I said ‘yes!’ – we were eventually married at St Anne’s Church on Boxing Day, on a Saturday in 1957.
“We had our reception at the School of Arts and we spent our honeymoon at the Peoples’ Palace Hotel in Newcastle.”
So what’s Eva’s secret tip for a long-lasting marriage?
“Trust one another – that’s all.”
