Love Stories: Our Golden Wedding Day

My paternal grandmother’s brother, Walter Ivan Martindale, married the love of his life, Snowdie Chambers, on 4 August 1903. Fifty years later, he wrote the following poem:

Dear One, Do you remember, it was fifty years ago,

That you waited at the mill pond, at evenings sunset glow,

For we were to be married, our lives be joined in one.

And we would walk together, till our day of life was done.

We stood before the preacher, and our marriages vows we said,

That we would love and cherish, until earthly life had fled.

And hand in hand we’d journey, until grown old and grey,

With loving hearts and happy, reach, our golden wedding day.

But oh, alas, ‘twas not to be, for comes that fateful day,

And though somewhere there is sunshine, and happy children play,

The sunshine can not brighten, my leaden skies of grey,

For I’m heart sick and so lonely, on our golden wedding day.

Though we had planned it otherwise, God did not will it so,

I was to know the lonely hours, you were the first to go.

He saw that you had weary grown, he called you home to rest,

I humbly bow before the will of him, who knoweth best.

Did I forget to tell you dear, how much you’ve meant to me,

Throughout those happy years of love, and tender sympathy,

You filled my life with happiness, each day new love, new joys,

You gave me five sweet daughters, and two strong manly boys.

They come to me, in each of them, I see of you a part,

Their coming serves to make me think, of you the more sweetheart.

And though they try their best to cheer, and ease my lonely way,

I long for you, my sweetheart, on our golden wedding day.

With sun of life descending, and I am soon to go,

And my life on earth is ending, tis so sweet for me to know,

That standing by life’s river, where those healing waters flow,

You’ll be waiting for me, waiting, as you did long, long ago.

Snodie Chambers Martindale passed from this life on 31 January 1946. Walter Ivan Martindale joined her on 2 August 1958, just two days short of their 55th wedding anniversary.
© 2011 Denise Spurlock