- ContributedHerbert and Gwendolyn Copeland.
AFTER 52 years of marriage, the many challenges they have faced have only proved to cement the love between Gwendolyn and Herbert Copeland. Affectionately called 'Miss Jenny' and 'Maas Herbie', they both grew up in the farming community of Mount Prospect in Manchester.
Herbie met Jenny when she was 15 years old, and he was 19. One day while walking on the road he saw Jenny and her uncle. In awe he exclaimed, "What a pretty girl! I would marry her." Jenny's uncle heard him and thought he was a little 'too polite'. He called Herbie and gave him a fine flogging the memory of which is still vivid in the minds of the couple. Herbie was never deterred by this. He was determined to make Jenny his 'heartbeat'. A few days later he met Jenny and asked her to be his friend. Jenny refused his proposal. He told Jenny that if he could not have her, then someone in his family would.
On a weekly basis, Herbie would take his produce to sell in the Balaclava Market in St. Elizabeth. Soon after he noticed that Jenny had started accompanying her mother to sell produce at the market too. He thought this was a good opportunity for him to win her heart (he would always seek to speak to Jenny while they were at the market). Slowly Jenny began to like Herbie. When Jenny's mother became ill and could no longer travel to the market, Jenny had to carry on this tradition by herself. As early as 4:00 o'clock in the morning, Herbie would meet Jenny to begin their trip to the market. As they travelled to and from the market, they would engage in discussions which helped to fuel the fire that was developing between them.
After several years, Herbie decided that it was time that he and Jenny got married. He gave her a letter for her parents asking their permission to marry her. Jenny was very nervous and hid the letter from her parents for two days. When she gathered the courage, she gave the letter to her mother. Her parents approved and on March 29, 1950, Jenny and Herbie got married at the Fairfield Moravian Church.
During their 52 years of marriage, they have produced 12 children, all of whom, except one, are now married.
Speaking at a thanksgiving ceremony held recently at the Mandeville Church of God in celebration of Mr. and Mrs. Copeland's golden anniversary, Audrey, the eldest of the children, said that her parents raised all of them in a very disciplined way. She noted that devotion was a daily routine in the family's life.
Having cultivated ground provisions for several years, Mr. Copeland began cultivating tobacco during his later years between the periods when he travelled to the United States on the farm work programme. He also did butchering for a short while before migrating to the United States in 1987 with his wife, where they now live.
The couple noted that in their 52 years of marriage they have never had an argument. Mr. and Mrs. Copeland advise couples to make Christ the centre of their lives if their marriage is to be successful.
- Damion Mitchell
