- [Narrator] This is a CNIB podcast.
(acoustic guitar playing)
- [Taylor] Welcome to CNIB,
♪ Lake Joe on the Go ♪
Hello, everybody and welcome to CNIB,
Lake Joe on the Go,
the podcast where we keep things short and sweet
so you can listen if you're at home or if you're on the go.
I am your host Taylor G.
I am a CNIB Lake Joe staff
and I am super, super excited to welcome you
to today's episode, which is about love at Lake Joe.
So today I am super happy
to welcome to the podcast Marsha and Butch.
Marsha and Butch,
would you like to introduce yourselves?
- Yeah. Hello, I'm Marsha Gilchrist
and this is my husband Butch, and
- [Butch] And I'm a lawyer, man.
- [Marsha] Anyway, we've met at Lake Joe.
We, I, I got lost.
I was trying to go to the boat dock and I got lost.
And anyway, a counselor
introduced me and
I met Butch and
we went on some of the boat trips
- [Butch] On '83.
- [Marsha] This was in '83 and, and we went, uh
- [Butch] It was over nine years ago.
- [Marsha] We walked, we went for walks and then
He lived in Bancroft and I lived in
Hamilton.
I was at the CNIB in Hamilton.
- [Taylor] Wow.
- [Marsha] And then later on, Butch came and
anyway, we started going out together and
and, uh
going out for the, the odd beer and supper and dinner.
And uh he,
he eventually, he moved to CNIB,
but I was in Calgary and this was after Christmas.
I was in Calgary visiting my sister and brother-in-law
and my nieces.
And I came back.
And, but before I came back,
a friend, Melody, phoned me
and she said, there's somebody at camp.
I think, you know
(Taylor chuckles)
who she said, it's Butch.
So anyway, so I got back to camp and
I ran back to the
- [Butch] CNIB
- [Marsha] CNIB and I was sitting eating supper,
and Butch came up to me and said, oh, hi, Marsha,
you're, you're back, eh?
I said, yeah. And he asked me about my holiday
and I told him.
And then
we, uh, we
we worked at the, in the outreach program
like we were learning life skills and
I was trying to learn, I was learning braille.
We were in, we were in, uh, we were both,
they had a little apartment
and we both got to be in it, like
(Butch coughs)
so we did, we did our own breakfast and
- [Taylor] Oh wow.
- And lunch and supper and everything.
And then when we were there for
a while, and then we went back to the,
to the residence, then Butch joined uh,
got in the apartment.
And if, when there was something I didn't like for supper,
I'd go to Butch's apartment,
And he'd, he'd cook it for
we had breakfast in, in the apartment, in his apartment.
- [Butch] Spaghetti
- [Marsha] Butch cooked spaghetti and roast beef, chicken.
- [Taylor] All the things. - [Marsha] And
- [Marsha] roast french fries and.
And we went,
we went to uh
played bingo.
And we, at the CNIB and we did lots of talking,
explained lots of stuff to him
- [Taylor] Right.
- [Butch] (clears throat) And we, and then we got married,
went down and got the,
went down and got the marriage license and
and then we got the day off.
- [Marsha] And then we got, anyway,
yeah, I proposed to him.
- [Butch] Proposed to me, you see.
- [Taylor] You proposed to him Marsha?
- [Marsha] Yes, I did.
- [Butch] She did.
- [Marsha] He was so shy and one day I just
- [Butch] Wow, now.
- [Marsha] And one day
- [Butch] I know, right.
- [Marsha] I said, hey, Butch, will you marry me?
And I, he said, yes, so
we were, we got,
got me the engagement ring.
And we went out for supper
and he put the ring on my finger and
and I told
everybody I was gonna get married and
they were all happy for us and
- [Taylor] That's so wonderful.
- [Marsha] They used to tease us in the shop, used to say,
Hey how many kids are you gonna have?
(Taylor chuckles)
You gonna have any little Butch's and Marsha's?
- [Taylor] Could you imagine having a bunch
of little Butch's running around? (chuckles)
(Butch chuckle)
- [Marsha] Yeah. I, I don't think, I, I don't know.
It'd be a little difficult.
- [Taylor] It would be.
So you have such a, a beautiful and unique story.
So why don't we, why don't we go back to the beginning?
So you guys said that you met at Lake Joe.
So was this your first,
both of your first times at Lake Joe,
or have you, had you been going to Lake Joe prior to this?
- [Butch] I, I went to Lake Joe for the first time in 1982,
a year before.
- [Taylor] Okay. What about you Marsha?
- [Marsha] Uh, no, it wasn't my first time I was going.
I went to the children's week.
And then when I, when I went to the, when I grew up
I went to the adult's week.
- [Taylor] Yeah. Okay. That makes sense.
Before this, heading to camp, would it be fair to say
that you weren't expecting to meet the person
that would be the love of your life?
- [Marsha] No, actually I wasn't.
I didn't, I didn't, I didn't really think about that.
I just was excited to go to camp and
- [Taylor] Right, right.
You go to camp, to go to camp and you expect to
do all of the fun activities and make friends and memories.
Um, but I feel like love is really, really unexpected
especially Marsha, you said that you were just heading
to the boat dock,
I'm sorry you said you got lost on your way
to the boat dock?
- [Marsha] To the boat dock.
- [Taylor] Yeah, you-
- [Marsha] And one of the, I dunno who the counselor
was though but the coun-
a counselor came up and said,
where are you going?
And I told her, and she, she introduced,
well here's a man here, he'll help you to the boat dock.
(Butch coughs)
Like she introduced, Butch as Butch
- [Butch] Right and.
- [Marsha] and me and
- [Butch] Butch is my nickname, which you knew by the way.
- [Marsha] And then Butch said,
oh, I'll take you to the boat dock.
So he took me to the boat dock and
at that time I was going
water skiing.
So then he, when he went back,
back to Bancroft.
I was wondering how he was doing.
And he would call me and,
and uh
- [Butch] I sent you a tape.
They for talk, yeah, he sent me a tape, letters and
- [Taylor] Awww.
- [Marsha] And yeah.
But then,
then later on
they uh, they actually did put it in the paper
that when we got married, the guy came
came to our wedding and he,
he put the, all the pictures in the paper and he
they wrote a little story about us.
- [Taylor] Oh, wow.
- [Butch] And then we got married. Like, yo,
we got married in London.
- [Marsha] We actually got married at,
in London, Ontario because we, my family was there.
So we got married there.
- [Taylor] Oh, wow. So cool.
That's far from Bancroft.
Marsha, where were you at the time?
- [Marsha] I was in Hamilton, but I was born
and I grew up in London, Ontario.
- [Taylor] Me too.
- [Marsha] Oh, you did? Oh, good.
- [Taylor] Yeah. Yeah so it's really interesting actually.
I mean, a little bit later
than you guys probably got married.
What year was that again?
That you guys got married?
- [Marsha and Butch] 1986.
- [Taylor] Yeah. '86.
Yeah. I was born in '99.
So (laughs) I came a little later, but that's wonderful.
So did you guys continue to go
to Lake Joe after your first meeting
together and after you guys got married?
- [Marsha] Uh, there was two years I, I didn't,
we didn't go, but there was, but then
after that we started going and,
and we had a good time.
- [Taylor] That's nice.
What kind of, what kind of activities
would you guys do at camp?
- We, swimming, uh.
We played shuffle board, lawn, - [Butch] lawn bowling
- [Taylor] Oh yeah.
- [Butch] We did it all.
- [Marsha] When they used to have the dances
at camp, they played music and we danced and
- [Taylor] Oh yeah.
- [Marsha] We went on the ice cream tour.
We went to the Legion,
- [Butch] Legion, back here.
- [Marsha] Now that time the Legion was Tuesday night.
- [Taylor] Oh yeah.
- [Butch] Back here, down the road.
- [Taylor] Yep. MacTier.
- [Butch] Had bands on the bay there.
- [Marsha] Bands on, bands on the bay, yeah, we went
- [Butch] Went very, very down.
- [Marsha] Yeah. We went shopping at Parry Sound.
Yeah. We were, we went to the twenty,
20,000 islands trip to the
- [Taylor] Right, the cruise.
- A big, yeah that was.
- [Butch] That was enjoying for me.
- [Marsha] Yeah. That was fun.
- [Taylor] Yeah. That is fun. I've been on the,
I've been to a couple of those off sites
that you guys are mentioning
and it's pretty fun.
And I mean, it would be a lot of fun
to experience together also.
So when's the last time that you guys went to
Lake Joe together?
- [Butch] 20, 20, 19.
- [Marsha] 2019.
- [Butch] Three years ago.
- [Taylor] I might have met you guys then in 2019,
2019 is actually when I met my, my partner, Aaron.
He worked at Lake Joe also, and we met that summer.
So I also have
an unexpected Lake Joe love story.
So um
Yeah. So
this was wonderful.
And I really appreciate you guys sharing your story.
Is there anything else that you would like to add
or mention or
feel that you want listeners to know?
about meeting your true love at Lake Joe?
- [Marsha] Well, I want listeners to know that
you have trouble getting a, a boyfriend,
your true love, or a girlfriend come to Lake Joe
and I'm sure you'll find someone.
- [Taylor] I'm sure they will too.
- [Marsha] Yeah.
- [Taylor] Well, that's wonderful.
Thank you so much for sharing.
Thank you both for being on this episode of the podcast.
When I, when Amy and I came up
with this idea for this episode
I immediately thought of you guys and I'm so
so grateful and thankful that we had you here today.
So again, I want to thank you both for being
on this episode of the podcast and sharing your love story.
I also want to thank the listeners
for tuning into our third episode of this podcast
and I hope you tune in for our next episode as well.
So how about we say goodbye to our listeners?
- [Marsha] Bye everybody.
- [Butch] Bye, bye everybody, bye bye
- [Taylor] Bye everybody.
(acoustic guitar music)
♪ Lake Joe on the Go ♪
(synth music playing)
- [Narrator] For more CNIB podcasts
visit cnib.ca/podcasts.