Cindy and Dale Bradley | 50 years

    Dale and Cindy will celebrate their golden anniversary, 50 years together, on Feb. 21. Valentine’s Day is just a warm up.
    The Wellington couple met in 1967 after Dale returned from an Army tour in Vietnam. He was 24, Cindy only 18 and just finishing up high school in Emery County. Dale was born and raised in Wellington. Cindy is from Lawrence, a tiny community in Emery County.
    Dale and Cindy met when she was with a relative visiting Dale’s family.
   “I was with my great aunt. She was coming over to visit Dale’s mother. Here was this guy with a motorcycle with this big bushy beard and cutoff fatigues and army boots on, riding a motorcycle,” Cindy recalled.
    “While we were doing our hellos and stuff, he went into the bathroom and shaved and changed clothes.     Then he gave me a ride on the motorcycle after dinner.”
    Dale explains further the bizarre scene that so captivated his future wife.
    “I just got out of the service. I had a combat boot on and a cowboy boot. I had one leg cut off (of his old Army fatigues), I had a big Mexican sombrero. I was just dragging Main (street in Wellington) down here, just to harass the people.
    “I just come back from ‘Nam. Unwinding a little bit. And that was the first time she’d seen me.”
    Cindy was caught by surprise more than once that day. First, she sees this bushy bearded war veteran dragging his little Honda 50cc motorcycle around town, then she saw a different side of him later that day.
    “He shaved off the beard and got dressed up,” she says. “He went and shaved because I was there.”
    The couple wed about seven months later. Their courtship included lots picnicking in the back country.
    “We’d mostly go by ourselves, just getting to know each other.” Cindy says.
    “It was kind of hit and miss, because he worked back east (for a Texas surveying outfit). So, whenever he’d come home, we’d date. He came home quite often,” Cindy recalled.
    The couple was married at Dale’s mother’s house.
    Today the couple has eight children—four boys and four girls, 20 grandchildren, two great-grandchildren and another on the way.
    The roughest time, the couple agreed, during their marriage was becoming primary caregivers to four of their grandchildren, including a 16-year-old still at home with them.
How are they going to celebrate their 50th anniversary?
They’re not sure yet. As long as they’re together, that’s all that matters.