WAILUKU - Two former public school teachers celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on the Big Island with their children and grandchildren last month.
Wailuku residents Edward and Joan Matsushita met while singing in the choir at the University of Hawaii-Manoa and were married June 14, 1958.
The couple; their three children and spouses - Jan, Earl (Karin) and Stan (Lori); and their five grandchildren - Michael, Kristin and Erin (Earl and Karin's children) and Tanner and Keaton (Stan and Lori's children) - marked the golden anniversary at a home in Kailua-Kona.
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Joan and Edward Matsushita of Wailuku celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary at a family gathering June 14 on the Big Island.
Ed Matsushita was born in Hamakuapoko and graduated from Baldwin High School in 1954. He was a music teacher in Washington state, and at Iao and Maui Waena intermediate and Waihee and Lihikai schools.
Honolulu-born Joan Matsushita, a 1954 Roosevelt High School graduate, was a public school teacher who also worked at Liberty House and as a Maui Police Department dispatcher.
Both are retired with Mr. Matsushita doing gardening, turning wooden bowls and playing ukulele, and Mrs. Matsushita T-shirt painting, beading and yarn lei-making.
Their secrets to a long marriage are "commitment, gratitude, kokua and, most importantly, Ed staying out of the kitchen and Joan staying out of the workshop," they said.
