By Steve Hubrecht

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Jim Fisher and Maureen Thorpe met later in life, but that didn’t stop romance from blooming. Nor did it stop the couple from developing a long-lasting bond and becoming a Columbia Valley case study in the longevity of love.

Next Monday (February 13) Jim will celebrate his 90th birthday. The very next day he and Maureen will mark their 28th Valentine’s Day as a married couple. 

Although Jim is nearly nine decades old and Maureen is 80, “we still feel young,” said Maureen, her voice veritably bouncing with cheerfulness.

Maureen is originally from Yorkshire, in England. She met Jim while both were middle aged, in Ontario, where she was working as a nurse. He had been a master electrician, then become a tech teacher for 20 years, before changing careers and running his own electrical business. 

Jim’s first wife had passed away a few years previously, and the pair were set up by a co-worker of Maureen’s, who also happened to be Jim’s neighbour.

“It was a blind date,” recalled Maureen. “My friend said ‘I think you two would get along great. I was a bit of a chicken and said ‘I’m not going if you’re not going.’ Well, it turned out to be the beginning of a wonderful romance.”

In September 1995 they were married. After the ceremony, they packed up a trailer and drove out west with two cars and two dogs, leaving Ontario behind to move out west. 

“That was our honeymoon,” Maureen said with a chuckle.

They arrived in the Columbia Valley and made it their new home, eventually settling in a cozy cabin right at the foot of the Rockies where they still live to this day. Jim is an avid runner (he’s done 26 marathons); he and Maureen were surprised to find there was not a local running group.

“Well, our attitude has always been if you can’t find something, make something,” explained Maureen. 

So the couple advertised in the newspaper and started a running club, which grew to 35 people and is still active. Maureen took on the job of club coach “Clipboard, whistle — I was the boss,” she said. Jim was the group’s most dedicated participant. “Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday, rain or shine, he was out there. The running club is his life,”said Maureen.

Aside from running, Jim was an enthusiastic hockey player and continued playing seniors’ hockey for some time. Maureen keeps very active as well; in the valley she launched a second career as a yoga and pilates instructor. She followed that up with still another career turn, becoming the author of a popular series of time travelling mystery novels (which have been the subject of Pioneer news stories in the past).

The couple also keep busy with their cabin, with Jim still chopping all the firewood.

Maureen graciously gives credit for the success of their relationship to Jim’s gentle and patient nature.

“We’re like the tortoise and the hare. He’s the tortoise, always deliberate and purposeful. I’m the hare, dashing everywhere at once. And he always wins. He takes every day as it comes. He’s very laid back,” said Maureen with a laugh. “He’s very unassuming, and very generous. He’s such a sweetheart. For instance, at the last Christmas market, I was there selling my latest book. And, of course, Jim was there with me. Well, he went around the whole market and he bought something from just about every other vendor there. I said to him ‘We don’t need all these things.’ And he told me ‘I know, but if I buy something, it helps each of them along.’ That’s the kind of person Jim is.”

Keeping strong social connections with the community through their various volunteer endeavours, and with friends and family, is another important part of their life, explained Maureen.

Jim recently fell ill over the Christmas holidays, with a bout of influenza that morphed into pneumonia, which kept him from running (or even walking too much), but he’s back on the mend now and already thinking ahead to running again.

Their friend Liz Vanderkruk, a member of the running club, pointed to the way they are continuously there for each other as a key to their successful relationship. 

“They really do support each other in their interests. Maureen was not a big runner, but when they started the running club, she was there, coaching Jim and coaching us all,” said Vanderkruk. “Then when Maureen got into yoga and pilates, well it wasn’t really Jim’s thing. But we went to all the classes and learned how to do it, because that’s what she was doing.”

The same applies to Thorpe’s time travelling mystery novels. “They’re not the kind of books Jim would normally choose to read. But he reads them all,” said Vanderkruk. “And maybe he’s coming around — he did admit that her most recent book was his favourite.”

“They are totally involved in the community,” said another friend, Jim Guild. “They are always doing something. They are an amazing couple in many ways. It’s pretty remarkable that at their age, they still live in a quaint cabin on 20 acres. They are still out there on their own, doing the wilderness thing.”