Swifts celebrate their 50th anniversary with cruises

Judy and Jerry Swift celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary over Memorial Day weekend by taking their children and grandchildren on a cruise to Ensenada, saying, “It  was so much fun partying with the younger generation.”

Last year, the couple celebrated their anniversary a little early by doing a house exchange in the Black Forest of Germany, with hosts who cooked for them and drove them everywhere they wanted to go. They then took a Viking longboat cruise on the Danube River, from Nuremburg to Budapest, staying a couple of extra days in each of those cities. It was a trip they highly recommend.

“This cruise to Mexico was on a different scale, as you might imagine, with our children and four grandchildren,” says Judy. “We had a much more ‘rowdy’ type of fun partying with the younger generation. Everyone had something to do – whether sliding down the huge water tube, a grandson volunteering on stage at a comedy show or our son starring as one of the Supremes in a Motown Review in the night club.”

Judy and Jerry met at the old Water Wheel Inn coffee shop in West Covina after Judy came to California with three roommates from Nova Scotia. She says she only planned to spend a couple of years here, but then she met Jerry and her plans changed.

They married in Jerry’s folks’ Lutheran church in West Covina, where he worked at the San Gabriel Tribune. In 1969, they moved to the San Francisco Bay area, living in Dublin, Pleasanton and Livermore, where they raised their daughter Laura and son Bryan “in small town USA.” Jerry worked at the San Jose Mercury News, from  which he retired in 2002.

Since both their children graduated from universities in Southern California and were starting families, Judy and Jerry decided to move south.

Judy says they found Canyon Lake online and fell in love with it at first sight. It is the halfway point between San Diego and Orange County where their kids live. In addition, Jerry’s almost 101-year-old mother lives in Wildomar.

Judy says she still gets to return to Nova Scotia now in retirement to spend the summers at their seaside cottage. “We are very blessed to escape the hot summers in Canyon Lake and enjoy the winter months here.”




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