Written by Michelle Gamage for The Delta Optimist.
The secret to making a relationship work is a little bit of love and a lot of tolerance says a Tsawwassen great-grandmother as she prepares to celebrate her 70th wedding anniversary.
Billie and Clare McBurney were married on Dec. 12, 1942 in Billie’s childhood home in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan during the Second World War.
Clare says he had a weeks leave from his navy posting in Regina, so he gave Billie a call and proposed. They were married the following week.
The wedding was a small ceremony with a few close friends and family members and a cake whipped up by Billie’s housekeeper.
“We weren’t the partying type, and it was war time,” said Clare.
The couple met when Clare moved to Moose Jaw in search of a job during the Dirty ‘30s.
“Lots of girls were flocking around the new guy,” remembers Billie, adding how she met Clare through the church choir and the local aquatic club.
The move to Moose Jaw paid off for Clare when he landed a job as an assistant accountant and timekeeper at a nearby mine. That meant when the newlyweds started their life together he had a pocket full of money, which was a lot more than his friends had at the time he said with a wink.
The two teens were part of the same group of friends and would go to dances and other social events together back in a time before television.
“We were great pals in Moose Jaw, and it was true that most of the fellows who lived in Moose Jaw married girls in Moose Jaw,” said Clare.
After the war the couple moved around a lot while Clare worked for Canadian Pacific Railway.
“Meanwhile I raised the children,” said Billie with a smile.
They lived in Moose Jaw where their three children were born before moving to Winnipeg, then Calgary and Montreal before settling down to retire in Tsawwassen where they have lived for the past 40 years.
Always actively part of the community, the couple kept up their passion for being involved by joining church choirs and sporting groups.
While living in Tsawwassen the couple participated in the Tsawwassen United Church, curling, lawn bowling, golfing and the Delta Music Makers band, which Billie joined after deciding to learn how to play the saxophone at 65-years-old.
Clare, 95, and Billie, 94, have three children, six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren, with a seventh on the way.
They will be having a small celebration with family to mark their 70 years together.
Michelle Gamage, journalist 
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