Everyone made sure to stay 6 feet apart, but that didn’t stop the family, friends and neighbors of Bill and Connie Deckman from throwing the couple a parade for their 50th anniversary.
William Fredrick Deckman III and Constance Mary Ward were married May 8, 1970, in a candlelight ceremony at the Manette Community Church in Bremerton, and on May 8, 2020, close to a dozen cars, trucks and motorcycles made multiple passes by their front yard on Cedar Drive in Cape George.
The couple’s daughters Marla, Laura and Elizabeth and grandsons Tanner, Kolby, Logan, Anthony, Owen and Frankie decorated the Deckman’s yard with balloons and photographs of their wedding, showing the floor-length brocade wedding gown and veil the bride both made and wore when her grandfather, Lloyd Ward, walked her down the aisle, and her mother, Adele, made a wedding cake decorated with purple rosebuds.
It was easy for the couple to recall getting married as high school sweethearts — Bill graduated in 1968 and Connie in 1969 from East High School in Bremerton — as George Martin provided a soundtrack of music from May 8, 1970, kicking off with “Wedding Bell Blues,” also known as “Will you Marry Me, Bill?”
Martin and his wife Marilee had been named among this year’s Rhododendron Festival royalty, so they joined the parade as the “Displaced Rhody King and Queen,” with all the paraders wearing purple and all their vehicles decorated with rhodies, lilacs, hearts, balloons and signs.
Ever since they retired from the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and moved from Allyn to Cape George with their dogs, Emma Louise and Rosie, Connie has been active with the Cabin Fever Quilting Club, Quilts of Valor and Cape George Quilters, in addition to gardening, creating sequined Christmas stockings and more recently, making face masks.
As for Bill, he keeps busy with his roses, his car collection, golfing and renovating his newest project, the Emma Rose, a 42-foot boat the couple plans to take to Alaska.
