Dick and Janice Stallbaum of Freeland will celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary next month.
They were married Nov. 9, 1946, at the Methodist Church in Langley. The couple will hold a celebration of togetherness at the Useless Bay Club House on Saturday, Nov. 5.
Janice was born in Langley and graduated from Langley High School in 1943. Dick was born in Everett and graduated from Everett High School in 1942. He was a member of the Everett high swimming team that won the state championship that year. He served in the military from January 1943 until January 1946; he trained as a hard hat diver for the Army and was sent overseas to England and France in 1944.
Janice and Dick met in Cozy Corners Grill on Whidbey Island shortly after his discharge from the service and were married. He continued his schooling and graduated from the University of Washington in 1949. The couple moved from Seattle to Edmonds early in their working years. Janice worked for a number of banks in the area and Dick worked for a mortgage banking firm. They retired to their home on Mutiny Bay in 1977.
Both Janice and Dick loved the outdoors, whether fishing clamming, boating, golfing, traveling to Mexico and Hawaii or just being at home on the beach. Dick has said that Janice knew every rock between Edmonds and La Push where a salmon might be hiding. On one of their cruising trips to Desolation Sound, they met John Wayne in Hoya Sound on Knights Inlet. After trading him some fish guts (prawn bait) for a couple bottles of wine, the couple’s 12-year-old daughter had a tour of Wayne’s boat, the Wild Goose. When she got back to the Stallbaum’s boat, the comment was, “But Dad, his boat is 98 feet longer than ours.”
Janice was an avid golfer and had a handicap in the low teens; she loved to play with her friends at Useless Bay Golf Course and where she was a ladies captain. Dick was also a golfer, and is a former president of the club and the Washington State Senior Golf Association.
The couple have three children: Joy Anderson of Whidbey, Sydney Zenger of Arlington and Rick Stallbaum of Colorado; a step granddaughter, Caitlin Mcafee of Seattle; six grand children, one great grandchild and three step great grandchildren.
