Long serving volunteers celebrate 70 years of marriage

Jeff Green | Aug 04, 2021

When Tom Christenson and Eileen Emery Christenson moved to Arden from Sault Ste. Marie to retire in 1993, they did not know what they would do, but they did know they would get involved in the local community, because that is what they had done everywhere they had lived.

“After we moved to Arden, we would go for lunch at the Rising Bun on Hwy.7 in Sharbot Lake. One day we were there and Anne, the owner, asked us to wait while she loaded up a bunch of takeout meals. When she was done we asked what that was all about, she said it was Meals on Wheels and she said we should look into helping out because they needed people,” tom recalled last week from the room that he shares with Eileen at Lanark Lodge in Perth.

That began an over 25-year stretch as Meals of Wheels deliverers, mainly to routes in North Frontenac, for Tom and Eileen.

Tom also took up acting with North Frontenac Little Theatre, something he had done before in Sault Ste. Marie, and played character roles in productions for over 20 years. He became well known at the Little Threatre, for playing wither a cop or a robber, as the scripts dictated in different productions. He was also famous for the wood burnings he would hand out every member of the production, including crew, at the cast party, up to 50 carvings for some larger productions.

Eileen would accompany Tom to many rehearsals, but she was never tempted to take the stage herself.

“I left that to Tom,” she said, “I prefer writing to acting.”

Eileen and Tom met in St. John New Brunswick. Tom was doing some training with Eileen’s sister, and she invited him over one evening to meet Eileen, who was studying to be a nurse, and everything progressed from there. That was in 1947 or 1948, and three years later they were married.

They moved to Ontario in the 1950’s, didn’t like, so they moved to Newmarket and move again to Sharon, Ontario. Eileen worked as a nurse through her entire working career, taking just over a year when their first daughter was born and 5 months with the second. One of their daughters, Lynne, now lives in Ottawa, and the other, Lorraine, lives in Whitehorse as does their step-daughter, Jayla.

They eventually left Sharon and moved to Sault St. Marie, where Eileen got a nursing job and Tom worked for a natural gas company and the railroad at different times.

Over the years, they took many trips to Whitehorse, either driving themselves or by bus, and a couple of times they flew.

By the time they moved to Arden, Eileen had close to 40 years in nursing.

“I was one of the first generation of women who worked,” said Eileen, “it was pretty busy, sometimes we would only see each other when one of us was coming in to the house and one of us was leaving.”

She said that one thing that has kept them so close over the years is that they like to laugh.

“We both have a sense of humour, which helps,” she said, “Tom has a temper, but it doesn’t last too long.”

They moved to Perth in 2008, when maintaining their home in Arden became too onerous, and lived in Perth, still travelling to Sharbot Lake for Meals on Wheels and the Little Theatre, for over a dozen years.

In 2019 Eileen moved into Lanark Lodge and Tom stayed in their place in Perth for a few months, but he was not thriving, so he also moved to Lanark Lodge, a few weeks after the COVID pandemic took hold.

At first they were living apart in Lanark Lodge, but eventually they were able to share a room, which has made getting through the pandemic much easier for both of them.

They have nothing but praise for Lanark Lodge.

“I think it is one of the best places around.” Tom said, “they have had much less problems than other places have had.

They don’t have a secret formula for keeping a marriage going for 70 years, except, as Eileen said,

“we still get along,, we do like each other after all this time.”