VW couple shares 50th with Moon landing

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

While most people in America are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s Moon landing today, a Van Wert couple will also celebrate a half century of marriage.

On July 20, 1969, while Armstrong and Aldrin were preparing to fulfill the promise made by President John F. Kennedy to land a man on the Moon by the end of the 1960s, local residents Mike and Marcia (Stripe) Wise were also fulfilling their own promises: to love and honor each other, in sickness and health, at First Church of Christ in Van Wert.

The couple said it was a coincidence that their marriage 50 years ago just happened to fall on the day the first humans landed on the Moon.

“That’s what we had planned,” Marcia Wise said with a smile. “It was NASA that decided to make it their day, too.”

Both Wises remembered the day well, with Marcia noting that it was “the hottest, the muggiest” day — so hot and muggy that the dye in the crepe paper streamers that hung from their car on the ride through town started to run.

The two met in 1965 when Mike Wise’s family moved back to Van Wert after his father retired from the U.S. Army. The family moved into a house built by Mike’s grandfather that, coincidentally, was across the alley from the house Marcia’s family lived in.

Marcia said that Mike always joked that “you’re supposed to love your neighbor and, boy, do I.”

After living next door to each other for a couple of years, the couple began dating their junior year of high school. Mike “popped the question” on Valentine’s Day 1969 and the couple decided to get married in July of that year. July 20, to be exact.

Marcia said she did the planning for the wedding — the first “fancy” wedding she ever attended — noting that her home economics classes provided her with the knowledge she needed to plan the couple’s special day.

Things didn’t all go exactly as planned, though, Marcia recalled.

“The best man lost his car keys and Mike forgot the wedding band,” Marcia said, noting that her twin sister, Martha, had to loan the best man, who was also her fiancé, her car keys so he could go get the ring for the ceremony.

Marcia also recalled that it was the first wedding ever for the church’s new pastor, Tom Reynolds, and he nervously called her by her twin sister’s name during the ceremony.

“So I’m thinking we’re really married?” she joked.

Marcia noted that her younger brother, Kelly, and Mike’s sister, Terry, were the ring bearer and flower girl for the wedding. That created a small problem, though, when it came time for wedding photos. Marcia had told Kelly not to get cake on his tuxedo, but when it came time for wedding photos, he was nowhere to be found.

Eventually, it was discovered that he had changed clothes so he could eat some cake, but had to change back for the photos.

“He didn’t want to get dirty,” Marcia said. “He obeyed.”

Marcia noted, fondly, that the roses placed on the altar for the wedding came from her father’s flower garden.

“He raised beautiful roses and mom arranged them,” Marcia said, adding that her father often brought her roses over the years before he passed away. 

Following the ceremony, the couple left for their honeymoon at the Michigan lake cottage of Mike’s uncle, Bob Wise, although some minor mishaps also followed them there.

“When we went out (of the cottage), the screen door slammed and locked us out, and Mike had to crawl through a window to unlock the door,” Marcia said, noting that her new husband also accidentally put his thumb through a rubber raft they were on and it deflated.

The evening ended well, though, and the couple stayed up to watch the astronauts land on the Moon before retiring for the night.

Actually, this year is a string of 50th anniversaries for the couple, who will attend their 50th class reunion in September, while Mike Wise celebrated his 50th work anniversary at AEP on June 16.

Mike talked briefly about how he came to be hired at what was then the Ohio Power Company.

Mike noted that he had worked at Balyeat’s Coffee Shop while in high school, and Ohio Power’s then manager, Ralph Walker, used to come in often to eat at Balyeat’s.

Walker apparently liked Mike’s attitude and work ethic and eventually asked him to apply for a job at the electric utility.

To celebrate their special day, the Wises said they planned to drive down to Wapakoneta today for the festivities at the Armstrong Air & Space Museum to honor the 50th anniversary of Armstrong and Aldrin’s historic achievement.

No doubt they’ll also take some time to celebrate their own momentous achievement: 50 years of happy marriage.