A love that lasts

Editor’s note: Fern Boldt wrote this tribute to her husband and read it to him on the occasion of their 58th wedding anniversary. Peter is experiencing poor health and memory loss, and lives in a long term care home where Fern visits every day. For their anniversary dinner in December, Fern brought ribs and read Peter this story.

It seemed like a miracle

I met Peter in September of 1962, when we both enrolled at Grace College of the Bible in Omaha, Nebraska. I was 18; he was 22. We sat next to each other in many classes, as we were assigned seats alphabetically. My first memory of Peter was in a public speaking class. His speeches about his boyhood in Paraguay fascinated me. I was completely smitten with him and started looking for opportunities to talk to him after class. He soon caught on that I was “chasing” him. One evening after dinner, he walked me to the stairway that led up to the girls’ dorm and told me he had a girlfriend in Canada. I was crushed.

We went on to date other people but remained friends during the three years we were in school together. Toward the end of our third year, I started the “chase” again by putting some candy hearts with little messages on them in his mailbox. Just before graduation I gave him and his roommate a haircut. He said, “If you don’t do a good job, I won’t marry you.” We weren’t even dating yet.

I thought he would return to Canada after graduation in June of 1965, but he stayed in Omaha that summer to build a house for one of our professors. On June 27th, he asked me if I wanted to come along and see it. He said he had to check out something in the attic while we were there, so he whipped off his shirt, so as not to get it dirty. Oh, my gosh! What a hunk! I decided then and there that anyone who looked that strong and who could build like he did was a great “catch.”

Seven weeks later, after receiving counselling from one of our professors about our future together, Peter asked me to marry him while sitting in his little red Volkswagen Beetle. I said I needed time to think about that. I was enrolled in the University of Nebraska elementary education program starting in September. Marriage would mean giving up my dream of becoming a teacher. He said if we didn’t get married, he would have to go to the war in Vietnam, as he had run out of reasons for dodging the U.S. Army draft. Even going back to Canada wouldn’t make him exempt, as he had a U.S. green card.

Of course, he loved me, too. I knew he was serious when he pulled a sparkling diamond engagement ring out of his pocket. He couldn’t get down on one knee in his little car, but I accepted his offer and we kissed for the first time.

The next day in downtown Omaha, I told him we’d better inform my parents. I told him to talk loudly, as my dad was hard of hearing. (This was before the invention of cell phones.) He yelled into the telephone at the phone booth, “I bought Fern a ring.” My dad hollered back, “Well, give it to her!” It was the best Friday the 13th of our lives. I cancelled school and started preparing for our wedding on December 10, 1965, less than six months after our first date.

The night before our wedding, Peter wrote the following: “It was December 9, 1965. I was on my way from Omaha, Nebraska to Clarks, a little town where Fern’s parents lived and where Fern had gone a week or so before to get ready for our wedding on the 10th. As I was driving my ’62 Volkswagen Beetle through the flat fertile lands that stretch along the Platte River Valley, I was amazed that I was here at all. How did I ever get here? How did Fern and I ever find each other, when, as children we had grown up at least ten thousand kilometres apart and when a hundred-kilometre trip seemed like a major undertaking? To me it seemed like a miracle. I was sure that God had meant us for each other and that he had planned it this way from the beginning without either one of us being aware of each other.”

On our wedding day, the weather was warm and extremely foggy. Eighty-seven people came to celebrate with us, including my grandparents from Minnesota.

When I told Peter that a lot of people kiss the bride in the receiving line, he said, “If some guy kisses you, I’ll knock his block off!”

Early in our marriage, Peter demonstrated his incredible ability to wiggle his left ear up and down. He said it would be his secret signal to tell me he loved me when we were out in public. People must have wondered why the newlyweds were snickering in church.

Peter and I had both been accepted by the Gospel Missionary Union for service in Latin America before we graduated from Grace. Seven weeks after the wedding, we moved to Missouri for orientation and language study. The mission council accepted us as missionaries in the Republic of Panama. During our stay there, we learned that our first baby was expected to arrive in the middle of October.

Tragedy strikes

We experienced a triple tragedy in mid-July. Peter was working at his construction job when he caught his right thumb in a jointer, a machine for planing the edges of boards. He came home holding up his bandaged hand and in great pain. I also hadn’t been feeling well all day. By midnight, Peter drove me to emergency. At 1:43 a.m. our first son Ricky was born three months prematurely, weighing 2 lb. and 6 oz. He fought for his life for seventeen days but passed away on August 3rd. Since we were too poor to pay the substantial hospital bills, the hospital staff offered to cancel all our medical expenses, if we would leave his body there for scientific study, which we did.

It had been quite a feat for Peter to drive a stick shift car with only the use of his left hand, which resulted a few days later in tearing out the transmission – our third tragedy that week.

A few weeks later, in September of 1966, we packed up all our worldly belongings into our little VW bug and headed for Rio Grande Bible Institute in Edinburg, Texas. We spent the next nine months learning Spanish there before going to Panama in February of 1968 with our three-month-old son Tim.

Peter expected to oversee construction and maintenance, so imagine our surprise when they told us that he would be the pastor of a small church in the village of Campana. Four months later, they asked both of us to teach at Bethel Bible Institute. Peter taught New Testament Survey and the Minor Prophets. Peter also taught a carpentry class, teaching students how to make bookcases, desks and tables. I taught basic music and typing. We decided to resign from the mission and return to Canada after 15 months there.

We sold our furniture and decided to drive home in our old white 1965 Dodge with about $150 to our name. Tim, now 18 months old, played in the back seat (no baby seats in those days) as we spent two weeks driving 7,000 kilometres back to Canada through Costa Rica, Central America, Mexico and the United States. Peter began to work for his brother John’s construction company as a finish carpenter.

The building years

He built both of our homes in St. Catharines, Ontario – a bungalow in 1969 and a trilevel across the street in 1978. He made almost all our furniture – beds, dressers, desks.

By 1974 our family had grown to four boys – Tim, Tom, Terence and Ted – and Peter and his brother John decided to go into the swimming pool business. They incorporated Boldt Pools Limited in March 1975. Two years later, I bought out John’s half of the business and started to work alongside Peter. Little did we know what a success it would become. We had over 60 employees and installed thousands of swimming pools during those 32 years until we sold the business in 2007.

We travelled to 13 countries over the years, our longest being a month-long trip to Brazil, Paraguay (where Peter was born), Peru and Ecuador in 1980 with all four of our boys in tow.

Peter spoke four languages fluently – Low German, High German, Spanish and English. He was an avid reader. He wasn’t one to bring me flowers or chocolates often, but whenever he stopped by the house when I wasn’t home, he left loving messages on yellow sticky notes on the fridge door. I saved them all in a “love notes” folder for decades before showing them to him one day. He was shocked that I had kept them.

Peter wrote two books. In 2007 he wrote Out of the Jungle, the story of his first 15 years in Paraguay, followed by a sequel, Back to the Jungle, in 2009.

He was a good golfer and taught me to play after we became snowbirds in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in 2003. Those 14 winters became some of the happiest months of our lives.

In sickness and in health

Sadly, those years ended in 2016 when Peter was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. It’s a good thing we didn’t know what the wedding vow promise “in sickness and in health” would one day entail. I cared for him through four bouts of cancer, several surgeries, a broken hip and eight crushed vertebrae from his many falls. Every time the ambulance hauled him away, I wondered if this were the time he wouldn’t come back. But he always did. He soon required nursing care overnight to allow me to rest. As his disease progressed and he fell more often, we hired around the clock care for him for a few months.

The boys urged me to find long term care for him, as it was taking a toll on my health, and, in February 2022, he moved to a facility where he can receive 24-hour-a-day care. I visit him every day, greeting him with “You’re still here; you’re still sweet, and I love you.” He likes Medjool dates, so I bring a couple to him each visit, and ask him if he wants to have a date with me.

It makes him smile. Every time.

Love is a verb

After 58 years of marriage, you gain perspective and wisdom that’s worth sharing. Here is some of what Fern has learned.

1) How do you define love?
Love is not a feeling. It’s a verb. Show it in as many ways as you can, every day.

2) What advice do you have for someone thinking about getting married?
Marry your best friend. It works.

3) Was there ever a time when your marriage was at risk?
Divorce was never an option for us.

4) How did you navigate tough times?
I went for personal counselling to undo the damage of my abusive childhood. I wish I had done it sooner.

5) What advice do you have for someone struggling in their marriage?
Get individual or marriage counselling.

6) Is marriage still relevant today?
People need a feeling of security, especially children.

7) Best advice?
Leave at least three things unsaid each day. It prevents a lot of arguments.