Northern Advocate
  • Northern Advocate home
  • Latest news
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Sport
  • Property
  • Video
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
  • Sport
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Residential property listings

Locations

  • Far North
  • Kaitaia
  • Kaikohe
  • Bay of Islands
  • Whangārei
  • Kaipara
  • Mangawhai
  • Dargaville

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • Kaitaia
  • Whangārei
  • Dargaville

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Northern Advocate

Couple live in tune for 60 years

By Lindy Laird
Northern Advocate·
18 Mar, 2016 05:00 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER: Whangarei couple Leo and Karen Cappel will celebrate 60 years of marriage soon, on their diamond wedding anniversary. PHOTO/MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM

DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER: Whangarei couple Leo and Karen Cappel will celebrate 60 years of marriage soon, on their diamond wedding anniversary. PHOTO/MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM

She studied music at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam and worked in a small bookshop. He studied art in Amsterdam and Paris and worked as an art teacher.

They met when a friend of his moved into her building in Staastraat, a canal-side street in Amsterdam, in the early 1950s. It was love at first sight and a meeting of minds, says Leo Cappel. It is a love story the writer of several manuals, essays, fictional books, plays, poetry and musicals has written about.

He'd arrived early to a party at his friend's new flat and, because the host had not yet come home from work, the woman who rented the room to him let Leo in.

"I'm Karen," she said. "My boarder won't be long so we might as well have dinner together. Can you cook liver?"

While he fried the liver and she prepared the vegetables, they talked about music and art and writing. Karen was a singer and musician, and her mother was a well-known poet whose work had been banned in her native Germany because she was Jewish. As a child, Leo, also Jewish, survived Nazi persecution by being hidden in safe houses. They talked deep into the night while the friend's room-warming passed next door.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"We were lucky from the very beginning," Karen said. Leo adds, "We have so much in common."

On April 2, the Cappels celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary. They have lived in Whangarei for years, their journey here via Amsterdam, Christchurch, Auckland and Kawau Island.

"We have had our second best life in Whangarei. The best was the 10 years we lived at Kawau on our boat," Karen says.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

They will share their diamond wedding anniversary with friends and family. And, to mark a milestone, the Cappels will open their music-and-art-filled home to a series of house concerts.

Leo played saxophone in a jazz band when they first met and she had studied piano - mainly because her strict father insisted - although singing was her real passion. Leo is known for making old-style instruments and the couple play a variety of them. They describe their music style as ethnic and classical, from various countries. Some of it goes back 5000 years while some is improvised, modern, interpretive. Their house concerts will include unrehearsed readings from Leo's own musicals, accompanied by the music he wrote himself, and perhaps poetry read by themselves and guests.

Last year, the Cappels spent a month at South Pacific Studio, at Mt Bruce in Wairarapa, when Leo was invited to be writer-in-residence. They took instruments and performed for the local community. Recently they spent a similar time at Wharepuke in Kerikeri.

Their 60 married years have been happy. There was "a tough period" in 1965 when Leo's job making displays for museums took them and their two sons from Christchurch to Auckland. Leo had been involved with the arts and sculpture movement known as "the Group" in Christchurch and Karen sang in a choir. But, in Auckland a special museum project saw him work seven days a week for 13 weeks solid. This was before they had made new friends and again immersed themselves in the culture of art, music and literature. It was an awful time and shook their marriage.

"And we decided we will never let that happen to us again," Karen said.

They play a small tune for the photographer, Karen on an instrument modelled on an old Dutch ommel, while he plays something else resembling a zither, using a feather as a bow. It's 60 years of marriage, lived in tune with each other.

"With the two of us working together ... you can't go wrong," Leo says.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Northern Advocate

Northern Advocate

Far North homes without power after severe gales

Northern Advocate

'Economic growth is key': Luxon discusses Northland's potential with iwi

Northern Advocate

Northland businesses unite for CCTV initiative to combat crime


Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Northern Advocate

Far North homes without power after severe gales
Northern Advocate

Far North homes without power after severe gales

More than 170 customers south of Cape Rēinga are still without power.

17 Jul 08:26 AM
'Economic growth is key': Luxon discusses Northland's potential with iwi
Northern Advocate

'Economic growth is key': Luxon discusses Northland's potential with iwi

17 Jul 06:02 AM
Northland businesses unite for CCTV initiative to combat crime
Northern Advocate

Northland businesses unite for CCTV initiative to combat crime

17 Jul 04:00 AM


Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

06 Jul 09:47 PM
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • The Northern Advocate e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Northern Advocate
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The Northern Advocate
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP