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It was love at first sight

ian allen - Ivy and Claston Facey

By FRANCINE BLACK, Staff Reporter

IT WAS LOVE at first sight for Ivy and Claston Facey and the love has continued to grow and blossom for more than 20 years.

Mr. Facey said they both decided to marry because he did not want to be a part of an arranged marriage being planned for him by his family in England, who knew he was coming. "I was to go to England on a holiday and I found out it was a trick. My sister had chosen a match for me. So I decided to marry three days before I left," he said.

On April 28, 1973 at the Georges Valley Seventh-Day Adventist Church, the couple exchanged wedding vows in a ceremony attended by mostly family and friends.

Mr. Facey said when he arrived in England and his sister introduced him to a woman and told him that she was his wife, he was told her that was impossible, because he already had a wife in Jamaica.

"I never regretted marrying, I am proud of my wife and I don't see a next woman to put before her," he said.

The couple, who lives in Georges Valley, St. Elizabeth, met, according to his wife, on April 13, 1954 when Mrs. Facey came to the district from Wilsons Run, Trelawny, to visit her uncle.

'Love mi off'

"She came to look for her uncle and den she love mi off," Mr. Facey said. However, Mrs. Facey said her husband, who lived at the house beside her uncle's, was the one who was smitten when they first met. "Him seh 'mi love you and mi want yuh to stay wid mi," Mrs. Facey recalls.

She did not stay but returned to Trelawny shortly after. Later when she returned to Georges Valley Mr. Facey enquired if she had decided to stay.

Mrs. Facey did not stay then but in 1959 she made the final decision and moved from Trelawny to St. Elizabeth. In 1960, the couple started living together and they have been together since.

Mr. Facey said he has no regrets and thinks his wife is a great housewife. "Mi like how she cook and she prepare mi clothes all right and the house all right," he said.

Mrs. Facey said she loves her husband especially since he does not frown when she brings home another child for the couple to care for. Although they have no children of their own, Mrs. Ivy often adopts abandoned children from the community.

Mr. Facey notes that the longevity of the relationship is rooted in strong communication between each other. "We discuss things before doing them. Wi reach di age when wi just live all right. Wi nuh have nutten fi go wrong," he said.