My Grandma Joyce...

Sharing my 96 year old grandma Joyce’s love story with you today.

Back in 1948, Grandma met Neville at a skating rink while heading to a dance. Neville was visiting his sister in Longreach for just a week. Grandma laughs and says she “accidentally met him going to a dance” that night.

They decided to meet again the next day and spent Sunday walking together in the park. Then Neville headed back home.

This was a time before smartphones and instant messages. Even landlines weren’t common or affordable. So how did they stay in touch? Letters. Neville wrote to Joyce, and she wrote him back. For two years they shared their lives through paper and pen. A slower, quieter way of falling in love.

Eventually Neville returned to Longreach, and they began dating properly. He then began working at the shearing sheds with his brother in law before finding a job at the local grocery store.

When asked how she knew he was the one, Grandma laughed and said, “I don’t know, it took a while. I wasn’t rushing into anything.”

They married when Joyce was 22, welcomed their first daughter at 23, and went on to have six children, five girls and one boy (who his sisters loved dressing up as a girl).

A simple love story, filled with patience, letters and quiet moments.