Friends for life! These three Port Perry couples are bound an 17 year old anniversary card that travels around the world. From left, Bryan and Rita Hilker, Warren and Lynda Pollard, and Jim and Anita Witty, got together recently to talk to Focus n Scugog about their unusual tradition.
A tradition that started as a joke
has kept friends in contact
for the past 17 years
It’s not every day that you find an anniversary card that has been ‘actively’ roaming this earth almost as long as you have - and visited more places to boot! But that’s exactly what I encountered last month after meeting Bryan and Rita Hilker and their friends.
For the past 17 years, a group of five couples, all originally from Ajax, have been circulating the same card for their wedding anniversaries. Every year, the card makes the noble, often risky, journey from Vancouver Island, British Columbia, all the way to New Zealand, and finally to Port Perry and Ajax before starting the round trip all over again.
What innocently began as a last minute gift idea, or as participant Jim Witty jokes “Just a way of being cheap,” has spawned into a tradition the couples look forward to every year.
“We write little updates about our lives,” says Rita Hilker, a participant and resident of Port Perry. As she opens the card and scans through pages of documented memories, she notes that the couples have written about their grandchildren being born, moving from one part of the country to another, their vacations and how they celebrated their anniversaries and retirements.
Every year, the process is just the same. Each couple receives the card a few days before their anniversary. After ‘catching up’ with the other couples’ lives through their written messages, the pair must then record their own favourite moments from the past year.
And, keeping with tradition, the couples always write about how they will be celebrating their anniversary that particular year. “Then we send it to the next couple,” Rita explains. “It’s a way of being thoughtful.”
As Rita recalls, the couples became friends after meeting in their hometown of Ajax – the men belonged to the Kinsmen Club of Ajax and the women belonged to the Kinette Club of Ajax. The tradition of the anniversary card would not start until years later when the couples were away in Florida.
It all began in 1993. Jim and Anita Witty bought an anniversary card and flowers for their friends, Joe and Donna Dickson, while vacationing with them in their neighbouring condos in Florida.
After the Dicksons and Wittys returned home to Canada, two other couples – Rita and Bryan Hilker and Warren and Lynda Pollard – came to Florida to celebrate their retirements. The Hilkers stayed at the Witty’s condo, while the Pollards stayed at the Dickson’s condo.
A few days later, another couple, Gale and Allan Mossman, joined the crew in Florida. One day, while chatting at one of the condos, Gale mentioned it was her and Allan’s wedding anniversary and that perhaps the six of them could go out to dinner to celebrate.
“We wanted to give them a gift or a card but all the stores were closed,” explains Rita. As the friends anxiously pondered how they could find a suitable gift for the couple, Lynda remembered spotting an anniversary card and flowers in the Dickson condo that the Witty’s had given the Dickson’s for their anniversary.
“I said to Lynda, ‘Go and get the card, we’ll just stroke out their names and put ours in,’” Rita remembers. “So we gave the card to Gale and Allan without the flowers,” she says, laughing at how silly and conniving the whole situation was. Little did they know the swift decision to give a “used card” to their friends was the start of something grand.
Inside of the anniversary card shows some of the messages and pictures.
Then in August 1994, The Hilkers and Pollards returned the card to the couple who unknowingly started the whole thing, the Wiity’s. “They were surprised to find out what had happened to their original buying of an Anniversary card,” says Rita. “And so a tradition was born.”
Now it was up to the Wittys to keep the ritual going. “So one year later we sent the card back to Gale and Allan,” explains Anita. “We were cheap though, we didn’t send champagne,” chimes Jim.
In the early 90’s, all the couples were living in Ajax and circulating the card proved to be a simple endeavour. However, things would change when one of the couples, Heather and Barie, immigrated back to their home in New Zealand after 17 years in Ajax.
With the couple moving so far away, the anniversary card now held a more meaningful purpose. It would keep the group of friends in contact despite living so far apart.
In 1996, Lynda and Warren and Gale and Allan, headed to New Zealand to visit Heather and Barie. Along for the ride was that faithful anniversary card, tucked away safely in their suitcase.
“We didn’t want to be the ones who killed it,” says Lynda. “We wanted to keep it going,” adds her husband, Warren. Before they left for home, they gave the card to Heather and Barie with instructions for the couple to send it back to Rita and Bryan for their anniversary.
In 2004, Gale and Allan moved from Ontario to Vancouver Island, B.C., adding another stop to the card’s travels.
With each passing year, the card would follow the same rotation, travelling from Vancouver Island to New Zealand to Port Perry to Ajax, all the while growing thicker as page after page of photos and messages were stapled to it.
Now the card serves almost like a time capsule and is often pulled out at social gatherings and family celebrations to remember landmark moments from the past 17 years. “August 2003 will be remembered as the Hydro Blackout!” Rita says, as she reads the various accounts of the year.
In 2001 the couples write about the shock and aftermath of September 11th. Rita points out one note that reads, ‘We realize even more how important family and friends are and how important it is to continue traditions like the ‘card of the years.’’
A glance at the card will also show that in spring 2003, the SARS epidemic had hit and in winter 2007-2008, ‘We received the most snow we’ve had in many years in Ontario.’ And it’s the little things, like the astonishing rise and fall of gas prices, (the card shows that in 2005, gas was .99/ litre then in 2008 it rose to $1.35 litre), that make the card a great resource for ‘tidbits’ of facts.
But, more than just a fun read, the card has an irreplaceable emotional value for the couples involved. Rita says, although it “More or less started out as a prank,” the card has now become a treasured tradition of the five couples. “We anxiously await its arrival each year and guard it while it’s in our care,” she explains. “No one wants to be the one to have anything happen to it!”
Although the card has managed to disappear a few times, it continues to survive year after year. But as it endlessly grows in pages and, in turn, sentimental value, the greater the pressure is to protect it.
Anita says that she used to have her secretary lock the card away when she received it. Now that she’s retired, “I have the responsibility to look after it myself,” she shrieks, admitting it’s a responsibility that often leaves her paranoid.
The other women unanimously agree, adding that as soon as the card arrives, they keep it out on display in their homes. This way, they can always have a watchful eye on it.
Fortunately, when it is not in their own protective hands, the five women are able to trust the Canada Post and New Zealand Post. After years of leaving their most prized possession in their care, they are more than thankful for their dedicated service.
As the couples relish over the years of documented memories, Warren adds that through all the celebrations, trial and tribulations, the most important thing is that “We’ve all remained friends.” And friends with an undying sense of humour they are, as Lynda sends the group into hysterics by adding “And we’re all still married to the same people!”
By Christina Coughlin
Focus on Scugog
