Celebrating 60 years of love and friendship

SWAN VALLEY - Ten years ago, Betsey Ellis was touring a castle on a hill in the Czech Republic Capital of Prague, when she found the perfect 50th anniversary gift for her husband Steve. It was a rock. 

Discreetly picking it up from some loose cobblestone, she gifted it to Steve and told him it was a symbol of their marriage because, like stone, the foundation of their love was rock solid.

With plans to celebrate their 60th anniversary on June 17, the rock remains a testament to their ongoing love and dedication to each other. 

"The rock was kind of for both of us because that's how we feel," Betsey said. "Through the trials and tribulations of life, we have a firm foundation." 

Betsey and Steve met in Maryville, Tennessee their sophomore year of high school. An outdoorsman at heart, Steve loved to fish. Working at a grocery store at the time, he said he had to decide whether he wanted to use his money to buy an outboard motor or a canoe. 

"Finally I decided I wanted a canoe and I never looked back," Steve said. 

Steve enjoyed canoeing with friends and when Betsey met Steve, she started to canoe with him. They started dating shortly after. 

After they graduated in 1957, they both attended the University of Tennessee. However after a year, Steve left to enroll in the Air Force. While Betsey pursued a degree in special education and speech pathology, Steve enrolled in the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York in 1959.

In his four years at West Point, Steve rarely got to leave campus. 

"We had maybe two dates out of the whole year," Betsey said. "I would go up in the fall for the Army-Navy game and take the train from Knoxville, Tennessee to West Point because you didn't fly back in those days." 

Steve said they put off the proposal and the wedding because of his time at West Point. 

"When I was at West Point, I couldn't marry, have a wife, a horse or a mustache," Steve said with a laugh. 

Steve proposed to Betsey at her home in Maryville in the summer of 1960 but didn't give her an engagement ring until his senior year at West Point. Per tradition at West Point, Steve took Betsey on a walk on the Flirtation Walk trail, a popular trail reserved only for cadets that follows the shore of the Hudson River. Steve gifted her a miniature version of his class ring. 

Traditionally cadets marry at a cadet chapel in West Point, but Betsey and Steve decided to return to Tennessee to get married in the summer of 1962. The same year they moved to Great Falls, Montana for Steve's first assignment with the 12th Missile Squadron at Malmstrom Air Force Base. 

They soon realized they wanted to build a home somewhere in Montana. 

"Montana was this place we didn't know anything about, it was wild and wooly," Betsey said. "It just drew us in." 

The Ellises ' time was short in Montana.  In 1965, they moved to Houston, Texas where they had their first child Charles. Four years later, they moved to Robins Air Force Base in Georgia, where they had their second child Gretchin. 

In 1970, they returned to Malmstrom Air Force for a second tour. They bought their property in the Swan Valley in 1974. Their children attended school in Great Falls and Gretchin graduated from Great Falls High in 1989. Betsey worked as a special education teacher in Great Falls. 

 In 2000, Betsey retired and they decided it was time to put their property near Salmon Prairie to good use.

 "We came up and camped on it and looked at it. It was just wild," Betsey said. "The trees were growing all over everywhere."

Hiring a construction crew, they built their current house from the ground up. Despite their different preferences, Betsey said she and Steve found ways to compromise how they wanted it to look and whether they should be involved. Like many things in their marriage, she said they "balance each other out."

"We have a new BMW on order and so I chose the car, but Betsey chose the color of the inside and outside," Steve said. "So you know, she allowed me to get the car to get the colors she wanted. That says at all, you know, we just have a decision and we just kind of work it out." 

While Betsey and Steve have lived in the same house for 20 years, they're not completely homebodies. They've traveled to Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Norway and France. One memorable trip they recalled was taking their trailer to Bellingham, Washington and taking a ferry up to Alaska with their daughter. They spent around eight weeks driving every road in Alaska, visiting Denali National Park and even coming within 100 yards of the Arctic Circle.

When they're not traveling, Betsey said she enjoys knitting and walking, while Steve spends his time shooting landscape photography. They said they consider themselves friends, just as much as they consider themselves husband and wife. 

"I just feel comfortable with her," Steve said. "She's my best friend." 

Despite their close friendship, they have gone through rough patches. Betsey suffered from breast cancer and Steve endured major surgery to remove cancer from his nose. 

Both Betsey and Steve said their strong foundation of marriage is based on their faith and their children. Both have been members of the Presbyterian Church since they married and are now long-term members of the Mountain Lakes Presbyterian church. 

According to Betsey, talking things out helps them get through tough times. 

"Steve and I frequently tell each other 'I love you,'" Betsey said. "We can talk out the hard stuff and verbally share the good stuff. We don't let stuff fester." 

Betsey said the secret to over 60 years of marriage is acknowledging that marriage is not perfect and that's okay. 

"When I was young, I knew I loved Steve. I was hoping he'd ask me to marry him, but I knew I was going to have to learn to hike and sleep in a tent and canoe on the rivers," Betsey said. "I think our longevity is probably because we love each other, but we also accept that we're not perfect."