The Haysville Times
By Barb Walters
One Haysville couple has something extra to be thankful for this week. On Thanksgiving Day, Thomas and Vivian Copeland celebrated their seventieth wedding anniversary.
Married November 24, 1935, in Fulton County, Arkansas, the couple later moved to Kansas where Tom worked for the Boeing Company, a career that would span thirty years. Their two daughters, Helen Stowe and Vernece Greig, live in Wichita. The Copeland’s have seven grandchildren, 13 great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild.
Haysville Dairy Queen employees noticed a customer coming in regularly for four chicken strips and gravy. It’s one of Vivian’s favorite foods. Recently, Dairy Queen owner Jeanette Westerhaus was visiting with Tom Copeland, who likes to buy the chicken strips because Vivian likes them so much. “He told he me was going to be married seventy years the next week,” Westerhaus recalled. “I said ‘what, you were married when you were five?’” He went on to reveal that he will soon be 88. “He’s just such a gentleman’s gentleman,” explained Westerhaus. “He’s just the neatest guy in the world.”
Tom Copeland picks up the chicken strips nearly every day, but he usually fixes something else for himself. The Copeland’s used to go dancing, but now they are content to enjoy their birds – canaries and budgies – 23 in all.
This won’t be the first time the Copeland’s anniversary has fallen on Thanksgiving over the decades, but the celebration is sweeter than ever.