Vern and Faye Jacobson celebrate 60 years of marriage. Photo/Stuart Whitaker
Vern and Faye Jacobson are today celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary.
Choosing Guy Fawkes as the day to get married has, says Vern, led to few jokes over the years - on the flip side, the newly married couple did get to watch the fireworks as they looked out over Auckland on their wedding night.
While they met and were married in Auckland - at St David's Church in Khyber Pass - it is in Tauranga where the name Vern Jacobson was made.
A long-standing car dealership owner, Vern was among the first to head to Japan in 1988 to source second hand cars for the New Zealand market.
But at the time of their marriage in 1955, that was some way off.
"I met Faye just before she was 16 at a dance at Eden Roskill RSA - dances were very popular in those days," says Vern.
Faye's family lived in Ponsonby and she and three friends would go to the dances, but there were two rules. They weren't allowed to be "seen home" by boys, and they had to get a taxi there and back.
To get over the first rule, Vern and Faye would meet to bike ride on the Auckland waterfront the day after the dances.
As things got more serious, Vern's riding around Auckland increased.
"I lived in Sandringham and used to work in Newmarket so I'd bike to Newmarket, then to the domain for rugby league practice then to Ponsonby where Faye would make me dinner, then bike home."
With Faye's family, Vern and Faye had a holiday in Tauranga in 1952, staying in a camp ground in Tay St. Vern was impressed with the place.
The following year he returned, this time with a car, and had a good look around. Training as a motor trimmer, he discovered there only one vehicle upholsterer in Tauranga.
"I decided that when I came out of my time, I'd start up in Tauranga on my own." It's exactly what he did. Faye stayed in Auckland until they were married in November. The newly weds lived in a rented flat in Second Avenue. Their first son, Grant. was born in 1956, their second, Craig, in 1959 and their daughter Wendy in 1964.
Vern sold the upholstery business in 1960, but was still owed 50 pounds by a car dealer from Hamilton, who also had a car dealership in Devonport Rd. To settle the debt, the dealer offered the premises in Devonport Rd - where Michael Hill Jewellers is now.
Vern sought advice from Faye's father Dick Sorenson, a service manager in Birkenhead, who agree to come on board as a partner and they opened Central Car Sales on October 8 1960.
Two years later the business moved to the corner of Eighth Avenue and Cameron Rd an land Vern still owns. It was a busy time as the growing family built a house in Karaka Rd in 1958, sold it two years later and built another in Rushton Ave where they lived for 20 years. In 1980, they moved to Matua.
While Faye wasn't involved in the day to day running of the business she often travelled with Vern as he went to pick up cars then drive them back to Tauranga to sell. "It was a good way to see the country - but it was a different world back then." Vern Jacobson obtained the Peugeot and Renault franchises in 1958.
Around 2000 the company obtained the Hyundai franchise which was eventually sold to the Farmer Motor Group about a decade later. Away form work Vern was a member of Lions, Jaycees and Rotary Clubs and played more than 100 games of hockey in goal for Bay of Plenty.
Faye says the couple wouldn't have thought of anything else except staying together for "love and companionship". Vern say it was just the way things were in the 1950s - marriage was for life. "Out of all the people we first knew when we came to Tauranga, I don't think any marriage fell over."
He speculates that the end of 6 o'clock closing might have had an influence on the number of marriage breakups. "Everyone was home by half past six because everything was closed. I don't know if that had anything to do with it, but I'm a bit old fashioned."
Vern says the couple have had a good 60 years. "We've done a bit of everything. We've done some travelling, we've been around the world a couple of times." The couple has had a low key celebration dinner with family.