General News
15 May, 2023
Ivy and Alan mark platinum anniversary
Today marks a day 70 years in the making for the Maas family — with Maryborough locals Alan and Ivy celebrating their platinum wedding anniversary. The 93-year-olds first met at the Maryborough Brass Band Hall Dance in 1947 and six years later, on...
Today marks a day 70 years in the making for the Maas family — with Maryborough locals Alan and Ivy celebrating their platinum wedding anniversary.
The 93-year-olds first met at the Maryborough Brass Band Hall Dance in 1947 and six years later, on May 16, 1953, were married at the Carnegie Church of Christ.
The pair’s three children have given them four grandchildren and three great grandchildren, with another on the way, with family across Victoria and also currently overseas.
For Alan and Ivy it all started at that fateful dance in 1947, where both of them say it was looks that caught each other’s eye.
“The brass band used to have a dance every week and we met there,” Alan said.
“Ivy came up from Melbourne — her father bought the bakery in Maryborough and we were about 18 or 19 when we first met at the dance.
“She was looking very pretty.”
While Ivy was wearing fashionable clothing of the time, Alan had donned his Scottish kilt for the night out, which Ivy admitted did the trick.
“Alan will tell you it was his Scotch uniform that caught my eye — he did look very handsome in his kilt,” she said.
It was perhaps fate that Alan’s love of the bagpipes would lead him to his other significant love, Ivy.
“I’m of German and Dutch descent but when I was a lad during the war, the pipers from the Maryborough band had pretty well all gone into the service,” he said.
“The chaps running the band organised teaching us kids how to do it to try and keep the band going.
“I spent 70-odd years as a piper just because I got involved with the Scots and the band here in Maryborough, it’s taken me around the world.
“I was playing the pipes at the Highland Society one New Year’s Eve and a chap asked if I’d be the piper for Clan MacLean in Victoria.
“That got me overseas to meet the clan chief and they made me their official piper but I don’t have a single ounce of Scots blood in me.”
Reflecting on their 70 years of marriage, Alan said there wasn’t really a secret to a long and happy marriage, but the support of people around you was important.
“We’ve been fortunate that we’ve had good doctors and physiotherapists to look after us,” he said.
“We’ve had people help us throughout life, it hasn’t been a case of good luck because we’ve had a lot of things that weren’t too good.
“There have been a lot of nice people that have been good to us throughout life, we’re quite happy about that.”
When asked about highlights from their 70 years of marriage, Ivy said there have been a few, including family, but the couple have also ticked along at their own pace.
“I think we’ve just plodded along really, we kept in work and just kept going,” Ivy said.
“Alan has been a very good husband, we didn’t have any money but we retired at 60 and he took me around Australia so I can’t complain.
“We also went on a holiday to England, Scotland and parts of Europe which was wonderful.
“Alan went to Gallipoli with our son and saw his uncle’s grave, Alan still talks about it.”
