“I must’ve thought he was alright because I married him.”
Debutant Joy was working at a telephone exchange when she observed a gentleman at a dance hall on Bridge St circa 1948.
Ray was an apprentice pastry chef making cakes, buns and other goods for hunters, who thought that the young woman fixated on him was “pretty cute”.
They went on to tie the knot at the Trinity Presbyterian Church on Nile St on 24 February 1951.
“She looked picture perfect,” Ray recalled of his bride walking down the aisle.
Brightwater shortly came knocking for the newly wedded Elvys, where Ray baked bread to make a crust and Joy tied tobacco on sticks at a Ngātīmoti plantation.
In the mid-1950s they shifted to Motueka where they ran a catering business for around 23 years before relocating to Stoke where they’ve lived ever since.
Joy, now 94, worked on the production line at Griffin’s packing confectionery and Ray, now 97, fixed cars before manufacturing and fabricating garage doors until their retirements.
They say raising their four children Allan and Wendy, who live in Nelson, and Barry and Lynette, who live in Australia, was part and parcel of their 74-year union.
Ray and Joy also have seven grandchildren, six great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild.
Their two decades’ worth of South Island exploits in a campervan also shone, but not quite so well in another mode of transport.
Ray flew gliders to Joy’s chagrin due to her experience.
“The only time she got in a glider, I took her up in the hill, and [she got a sore stomach] so I had to take her back down again,” he says.
Ray says tolerance was the hallmark of their successful marriage.
“I’ve been very lucky to have her to look after me, she has been very tolerant all these years,” he says.
The Elvy’s say they’re “too old to start making plans” but like to pass the time keeping their home, which was built by their son-in-law Alan Kissell, fiercely in order. Much like their married life.
