Still soulmates after 63 years | Lismore News | Local News in Lismore

Piora couple Doris and Spencer Spinaze, still devoted to each other after 63 years of marriage.

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AFTER more than 60 years together, Casino district couple Doris and Spencer Spinaze are still smitten with each other.

On Monday, the long-time Piora residents celebrated their 63rd wedding anniversary and their continuing devotion is apparent by the knowing looks they share and the way each is able to finish the other’s thoughts as only a couple who has shared life’s journey can do.

Mrs Spinaze, 85, candidly admits that she would be ‘absolutely lost’ if anything happened to her husband.

Mr Spinaze, who is six months his wife’s senior and not quite as comfortable sharing his feelings, particularly with almost complete strangers, is a little more circumspect.

However, he agrees that he, too, would be desolate without Doris.

The couple met as teenagers when Doris and her sister would visit their aunt, who had an office in the same building Spencer worked in for Percys and Nott.

They used to say hello and chat, but it wasn’t until after Spencer joined the air force as a fitter and turner that their periodic friendship turned into a romance.

“Spencer was home from the air force and he went in to visit my aunt, who told him where I was working. He came around and saw me and asked me to the pictures,” Mrs Spinaze said.

“I used to hitch-hike home from Amberley air force base, in southern Queensland,” Mr Spinaze chips in.

“We’d come down the coast and I can remember that blocks of land at Southport were for sale for £60 each.

According to Mr Spinaze, he knew Doris was the one for him after going out with her a couple of times.

“I was quite impressed,” he said. “And things sort of went from there.”

By the time the couple married in St Paul’s Presbyterian Church in Lismore on November 29, 1947, Mr Spinaze had been released from the air force because of the critical shortage of skilled workers in the agricultural sector and was working as a seed and produce merchant with EJ Eggins.

In the more than six decades since then, the couple have raised four children – Merrin, Janet, Kenneth and Margaret – and bought and sold several properties before finally settling at Piora, west of Casino.

In that time Mr Spinaze also became involved in a number of community and industry organisations, serving as president of the Queensland and Northern NSW Seed Merchants Association, the North Coast National A&I Society in Lismore, and the NSW branch of the Brahman Breeders’ Association.

He was also president for 27 years of the Group One zone of the Agricultural Societies Council, served on the Board of Tick Control and was prominent in the Rural Youth Movement.

Mr Spinaze’s efforts were honoured with numerous awards, including an MBE in 1982 for services to the community and a special award from the Italian Government in 1983 for his services to the Italian community.

Throughout all her husband’s community and professional endeavours, Mrs Spinaze has been at his side supporting, enc-ouraging and helping him where she could.

It’s that devotion which has held the couple together for more than six decades, according to Mr Spinaze.

Mrs Spinaze sees things a little differently.

“It’s being tolerant of each other, although I don’t know if that’s really the correct word,” she said.

“It’s more about being able to laugh at life’s little catastrophes.”