Carol and Mike Todor met over 37 years ago, through mutual friends, at the Windsor Hotel in Red Deer. Mike was living in Red Deer and Carol was an industrial painter, up in Ft. McMurray. They were both in their young twenties and only dated for six months before getting married December 9, 1978. They have been married 37 years.
Their honeymoon was spent in Red Deer and “It was alright, we’re still planning the honeymoon.” laughs Mike.
Together they have one daughter who gave them a grandson last fall. “He was just a little thing on my knee, now you have to hang onto him.”
“The thing I love about Carol is that she puts up with me, she just works so hard and she is willing to share her life, just who she is.” expressed Mike.
They work together at 3rd Avenue Arts and have been in the building for 22 years. It was derelict when they bought it and hired contractors to do the ground floor and then did the rest themselves.
Mike said, “We are just a couple of crazy artists living in Alberta. Seemingly, we’ve done it. Carol does water colors and some of them are displayed in the gallery. She retired from teaching dance last spring.”
They live and work under one roof and have created the distances that they need. Mike will work through the day and she’ll work the evening. Carol is skiing right now and she emailed to Mike, “You are the best Valentine ever, because you stay at home so I can ski.”
When Mike was asked to recall some crazy times in their marriage, he replied: “I do remember working upstairs, on a step ladder, on top of scaffolding. Carol was running the sander below and knocked over a lamp. I thought she was going to electrocute me!
We’ve never had a lot of time to go on holidays, but a couple of years ago we flew to Arizona, then drove to California and had the flu the whole time.”
Sometimes Mike rides his motorcycle, a Yamaha V-Star 1100 and sometimes Carol goes skiing. It gets them apart so they can be back together, and this keeps the romance alive. Carol used to ride with Mike on an old Goldwing motorbike for thousands of miles, but she hurt her back. Then it was decided that riding was her history not her future.
Mike explained, “We just seem to work together and we get along. They say that marriage is 50/50 and it’s not. It’s 100/100 and it’s just who is giving 100 today and who is giving 100 tomorrow. It’s shared and you’ve got to care.”
