Til Degrees Do Us Part

Every romantic couple has a beginning. For some, it all starts on a university campus—where people of different backgrounds are brought together, and chance encounters can turn into something life changing.  

Shirley Bond [BScHEc/46] and Don Wilton [BScAgr/46] wouldn’t have crossed paths if it weren’t for the University of Manitoba. She was the eldest daughter of a lawyer, born in Winnipeg and raised in Fort Rouge. He was the eldest son of a farmer, born and raised on a homestead near Roland, Manitoba.

When they first met in 1942, the Fort Garry campus was a fraction of its current size, made up of a dozen brick and stone buildings nestled in a meander of the Red River. The Second World War was ongoing, and the south side of campus, including the residences, had been commandeered by the army for training and housing.

Don Wilton, 1943

Don hadn’t initially planned to be there pursuing a bachelor of science in agriculture. He’d earned an agriculture diploma a few years prior and had returned to the farm, but around Christmas in 1941, he became ill and didn’t get out of bed until the following June. The diagnosis was rheumatic fever, and doctors weren’t sure he’d ever walk again. While he did eventually get back on his feet, his days of doing manual labour were over and he decided to head back to school.

In a story about his life that he wrote in 1997, Don says, “My health was a long way from being A-1 that first year at the U of M. Some of our classes were on the fourth floor of the science building. I was able to make two floors and would have to sit down on the stairs for a breather. Shirley claims that was the first time she noticed me. I really didn’t do it just to get noticed!”

As it turns out, meeting Shirley was the silver lining of everything he’d been through.

She was at UM fresh out of high school, working on a degree in home economics. Like most female students at that time, she was also enrolled in a variety of courses to aid in the war effort.

Shirley Bond

In her own writing, Shirley remembers feeling overwhelmed at university. “I was a very young lady in an entirely new world, one among thousands, few of whom I had ever seen before. The classes were so large, the professors so intimidating. What was I doing here? I asked myself, and then one day the world changed. In physics class I was supposed to be fixing an electric gadget. I wasn’t having too much success when a voice over my shoulder asked if I could use a little help. I sure could and did.”

That voice, of course, belonged to Don. Shortly after, he invited Shirley to a university dance.

“I was a little slow as she had accepted an invite from another fellow,” Don writes. “I found out later that that date was not as exciting as she might have expected. Her date suggested that he would appreciate it if she did not wear lipstick and there were a few other matters he thought he should solve. At one stage during the evening my friend and I went up to the balcony to watch the dancing. There was Shirley sitting with her escort in the balcony on the other side. I got the impression from Shirley’s looks she was not too happy about her evening and I was not helping a bit…I think another problem she had, if I remember correctly, was that her fellow didn’t even dance. We had many a good laugh over that evening. I sure never let anybody else get the jump on me again.”

At a dance together, 1945

A double date of dinner and a show followed in the spring of 1943 and then the university year was finished, and Don went home to the farm for the summer.

“The experiences of a city girl’s visits to the farm were something else,” Shirley writes. “A five-mile ride in the jitney on a mud road from the bus at Roland to the farm, a cracked wash basin in my bedroom, a crow and shotgun blast over the outhouse, an encounter with the electric fence, a stubble field on fire, a sore shoulder from trying out the shotgun, and on and on. I survived and I think I really enjoyed it all.”

In the fall, they returned to campus and their courtship continued through their remaining three years of study. One of the highlights for both was the time they spent together on their way to campus from their homes further downtown.  “Travelling by streetcar and bus took a lot of time,” Don writes. “On most days, I would meet Shirley at the corner of Osborne and Corydon and that made the time spent much more attractive.”

Don and Shirley graduated on May 16,1946 and were married two days later before leaving town on their five-week, 5,000-mile, 500 dollar honeymoon in Don’s 1938 Chevy. Their lives took them from Winnipeg to Minnedosa where Don held the position of agriculture representative for the provincial government. Shirley established and ran the home (a three-room apartment over a shop on Main Street with no running water) and they started their family. In 1949, Don began working for Manitoba Pool Elevators, transferring back to Winnipeg in 1953 where the couple lived for the rest of their lives.

Don and Shirley Wilton at their 50th wedding anniversary, 1996

“Our life together has been pretty wonderful,” Shirley wrote on their 50^th wedding anniversary in 1996. “In the early years, as a 22-year-old mother with my first child and living in a small Manitoba town, I sometimes wondered why I had not taken my mother’s advice to work a few years before getting married and having a family. Now I have my four wonderful children, all with university degrees (from UM) and well established in their life’s work, and eight grandchildren. We have been abundantly blessed.”

Don lovingly cared for Shirley through ill health in the lead up to her death in February 2005. He missed her deeply until the day he died in September 2006. They were truly soul mates for their entire 58 years of married life, and it all started with a chance meeting at the University of Manitoba.  

Teri Stevens