Couple celebrates building their lives for 50 years

Photo courtesy of Bill Warfield

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Bill and Jolina Warfield cut the cake to celebrate their 50th anniversary with family and friends at the Madeleine Choir School June 13. They met when they were 13 and 14, and their lives have had many twists and turns.

SALT LAKE CITY — Jolina and Bill Warfield will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary June 27. They are members of the Cathedral of the Madeleine Parish.

Their children celebrated their Golden Anniversary with a party held at the Madeleine Choir School on June 13th.

"We both grew up in Idaho, and met through my sister," said Jolina.

"Well the first time I saw her was when I was playing basketball and she was a cheerleader," said Bill. "We didn’t really know each other. "I went to a school in Ketchum, and she went to a school in Bellevue. She was 13, and I was a year older, but two grades ahead. Somehow her sister, Renigia, started going with my friend across the street. He is two years to the day older than I am. I would drive them while they were on a date, and that is actually how we started getting to know each other. In those days you could drive when you were 14 in the State of Idaho.

"They brought him with them to Bellevue where I lived, and introduced him to me" said Jolina.

"We would go out, but it wasn’t serious until she was a freshman and I was a junior," said Bill. "We actually got engaged the summer of 1957, when I graduated and she was a junior.

"I was not a Catholic, and at some point I started taking classes at the urging of her mother and the way Jolina and her family lived," said Bill. "I took classes from the priest in Twin Falls, where I was going to Twin Falls Business College and living with my sister. I had no idea what I wanted to do, but I wanted to get some kind of education. I had an athletic scholarship to Wyoming but it only paid so much, and I did not have the money. So I went to the business college and worked at the Twin Falls Times News. I drove back and forth and we communicated. We wrote letters, and we still have half of them.

"Gosh it was fun to get the letters in the mail," said Jolina.

"I was attracted to how beautiful Jolina is," said Bill. "Our personalities are the type in which we debated about everything until the final straw it seems. Her mother thought we debated too much. But I thought Jolina was good hearted, tender, a driving person, and nice to be around.

"Bill was always very dependable and serious," said Jolina. "He had ambition and drive, and I admired that in him."

"Her folks actually moved to Westwood, Calif., when she was in high school, but after six months we decided maybe she should come back to Twin Falls to finish high school," said Bill.

"I came back to live with my sister for the second half of my senior year and graduated from Twin Falls High School," said Jolina. "I would walk to school and he would pick me up from school.

"Then she graduated from high school and I graduated from business college and we got married," said Bill.

"We got married June 27, 1959, at St. Edward’s Catholic Church in Twin Falls," said Jolina.

"I became Catholic and her mother and father were my Godparents," said Bill. "Then I started working for West Coast Airlines, which became Western Airlines, which is now part of Delta Airlines. I stayed with the airlines until 1966. I was a senior agent for them at a satellite airport in Sun Valley, Idaho. I bought an airplane and started to learn how to fly in September of 1965. By June 1966, I had my commercial license. That is the reason we came to Salt Lake City because I got a job with Jeclo Corporation flying corporate planes for them in July 1966.

"By this time we had three girls," said Bill. "We moved to this house in 1966."

"We have been in this house ever since," said Jolina. We have a son, but he was born later.

"I became an airline transport pilot," said Bill. "That is the highest rating you can get as a pilot.

"Several companies would hire me to fly for them, and I would take Jolina with me," said Bill. "So we have been to the eastern shore and all over."

Religion has been a large part of Bill and Jolina’s lives. They raised their children in the Catholic faith and with all the sacraments. Bill had not yet been confirmed when their son was confirmed, so they were confirmed together.

"One of the things that is very important in our marriage is that Bill was spending a lot of time out of the city with his flying, and by then we had our son to raise," said Jolina. "I was home with the children. I was glad I could stay home with the children and glad I did not have to work outside the home, but I needed help. So in 1975, he quit flying professionally so he could be home and help me raise the kids."

"I was away 30 days and home for seven, so it was a strain on the marriage relationship, and the kids," said Bill. "I was not doing what I was supposed to be doing."

"It was hard for all of us," said Jolina.

"There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about it," said Bill. "I loved flying, but you don’t have four kids and a wife and throw it all away. So I got into the business of overhauling industrial fuel systems."

"I always had a strong faith in God," said Jolina. "On the night of the rehearsal, the wedding party went to confession, and the priest said to me just remember it is the trying that counts, and that has really stuck with me. I really took that to heart. I have sometimes thought people give up too soon, but you really don’t know what is in their hearts. That is my opinion."

"I really think Jolina was the biggest instrument to guide me and our kids," said Bill. "It wasn’t until later that I really felt the strong presence of God. That was at the death of her father in 1994.

"All those years I had rededicated myself to the family, but Christ determined the time he wanted me to do something more substantial," said Bill. "He wanted me to be a better Catholic."

"The Holy Spirit was really working through my father at his death, and many were, what some would call reborn," said Jolilna. "Bill really began a more personal relationship with Jesus Christ. That is when we started praying the rosary together. We started having people come over to pray with us, and then they started doing the things that God was teaching them."

"At the time of her father’s death, I felt a real compassion to find a confessor, and Jolina introduced me to Father Patrick at the Trappist Monastery in Huntsville," said Bill. "That was really a special moment for me. I unloaded a lot of garbage, and we have been seeing him every month since.

"I was not close to her father, but as he became sicker we started getting closer," said Bill. "On his death bed he told Jolina ‘I love you so’ over and over. Then he said, ‘Billy I love you so.’ He had never called me Billy. It was a special moment the Holy Spirit had blessed her dad with and so many were healed through him. It was all part of the journey."