Smiths to celebrate 69th anniversary
Marvin E. and Shirley (Voelker) Smith will mark their 69th wedding anniversary on Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2020.
Shirley Joanne Voelker and Marvin Eugene Smith were united in marriage on Aug. 4, 1951 at 5 p.m. in Hoyt. The ceremony, officiated by the Rev. Harold Brown, husband of Marvin’s sister, Helen, took place in the home of Shirley’s parents, Paul and Wilma (Holt) Voelker, who co-hosted with Marvin’s parents, Edwin and Erma (Isaacs) Smith, also of Hoyt.
The newlyweds made their first home in Wichita, where Marvin commenced teaching the Veterans on the Farm Program at Friends University and Shirley was employed as an insurance agency office assistant.
Summer of 1953 saw the couple’s return to northeast Kansas when Marvin signed a contract with Seaman Rural High School (at Lyman and Rochester Roads in North Topeka) as vocational agriculture teacher and advisor of the Future Farmers of America (FFA) program. Many of the students’ parents farmed in Soldier Township’s Kaw Valley north of Kansas Highway 24.
In March 1955, Shirley and Marvin moved from the boxcar home on Menninger Road to their newly purchased farm in northeast Shawnee County. By 1965, the couple and their family of four children were engaged in full-time Grade A dairying.
After the Holstein dairy herd was liquidated in 1985, Angus beef populated Sunnyside Farm and kept Shirley and Marvin busy in the years to come. Marvin was elected to the Kansas House in 1980 and served 14 years as a representative.
Marvin and Shirley have four children, Connie Smith, Ben Smith and his wife, Ramona, Donna Amend and Jim Smith and his wife, Elizabeth; six grandchildren, Jennifer Davis, Curt Hermann, Brandon and Blake Smith and Brock and Chanel Smith. They also have eight great-grandchildren, Monica and Spencer West, Jake and Tyrus Davis, Camdyn and Finn Smith and Stella and Lincoln Smith.
Cards may be sent to the couple at 123 NE 82nd St., Topeka, KS 66617.
