Emerald Anniversary

Clematis (Grosh) and Darius Hallabeck will celebrate their 55th anniversary on Friday, September 5.

“We dated for over two years before we were married,” Mrs Hallabeck said this week. “I wasn’t in any hurry.”

The couple was married on September 5, 1953, by Father Victor at St Joseph’s Church in Brookfield. They were joined by family and friends for a reception at the home of his parents, on Candlewood Lake in Brookfield.

At the time Mrs Hallabeck was working at Barden, “and it felt like half the people from there came to our wedding.” For a number of years Mrs Hallabeck also operated a hair salon out of her home.

Mr Hallabeck is a veteran of World War II.

The Hallabecks lived in Danbury for the first few years of their marriage, and then built a home on Butterfield Road and moved into Newtown by the late 1950s. They raised their two children, Donald and Marjorie, in their Newtown home.

The couple’s son and daughter-in-law, Diantha, live in Newtown and also have two children, Eliza and Patrick.

When asked about her long-lasting marriage, Mrs Hallabeck is quick to say, “We don’t fight. We just have a very good relationship. We take care of each other, and everything is going just fine.

“I just wish I knew where the 55 years went,” she said with a laugh. “They just flew by.”