Sixty-nine years and counting for Keith and Roma Zietsch

AROUND the same time every day, 91-year-old Keith Zietsch arrives at the front door of the South Grafton Aged Care Home.

TIME TOGETHER: Keith and Roma Zietsch will celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary later this year. Picture: Adam Hourigan

ABOUT the same time every day, 91-year-old Keith Zietsch arrives at the front door of the South Grafton Aged Care Home.

His wife of 69 years, Roma, can't recall a day when he hasn't followed the routine, and that is because there have been hardly any.

Mrs Zietsch has been living at the care facility since she had a stroke three years ago, and since then her husband has made an effort to be by her side every day, at the same time, while still holding down the fort at the Powell St house he built more than 50 years ago.

It is just the latest chapter in the lives of the now great-grandparents, whose stories first intertwined at Grafton High School but it was the Jacaranda blossoms that brought them together.

"We had no occasion to be together when we were at school but we met again at the folk dancing in the avenue for the Jacaranda Festival," Mrs Zietsch said.

"We had a dance together and that was it, that's where we actually met. And then he went to the army."

Mr Zietsch, who was born in South Grafton, left for Cowra as a private at the age of 18 and 4 months and later underwent machine gun training in the 6th Machine Gun Battalion.

In October 1943, he left for Canungra for jungle warfare training and over the next two years spent time in New Guinea, the Atherton tablelands and Borneo, arriving back in South Grafton three days before his father died in 1945.

During those years Roma and Keith became engaged.

They wed in Grafton in December 1946 and as a married woman the new Mrs Zietsch was forced to give up her government job at the Grafton telephone exchange.

"When we were first married we lived with my parents for a little while, and bought the block of land on this side of the river," she said.

"It was in a flood area, which was sometimes scary, but that didn't matter because it was our own."

Mr Zietsch, who was by that stage working as a carpenter, built his own house on the land to withstand the floods that came through prior to the levee wall being built.

It was in that house that the couple had five children, who have them with eight grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren, some of whom they haven't yet met.

While watching and listening to Mr and Mrs Zietsch reminisce about their lives in, it is apparent that they are bouncing memories off each other.

"I suppose it's been an incredible journey," Mrs Zietsch said of their life together.

"I think one of the most important things is we never had big rows. We'd have disagreements but I always think you have to agree to disagree and you can't expect everyone to think the same otherwise it would get a bit boring, wouldn't it?

"But keep your communications lines open so that any time you might think, I can agree on certain things, you can open the conversation on it. For me, it's the most important thing."

For Mr Zietsch, the most important thing is visiting his wife every day.

"Keith usually comes over at meal times and helps me with my meals when I need it," Mrs Zietsch said.

"He doesn't miss too many and it's the best part of my day."

The couple will celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary on December 5 but Mrs Zietsch said, while pointing at a black and white wedding photo encased in a laminated heart, that this year had offered something different; the pair marking Valentine's Day for the first time.

"We've always celebrated birthdays and Christmas and our wedding anniversary but not Valentines Day, we never bothered with that," she said.

"We just felt that every day should be the same."

Originally published as Sixty-nine years and counting for Keith and Roma Zietsch