Tom Gillen Sr. and Glenda Gillen, married for 62 years, stand with Tom's traditional Tlingit art - a paddle he carved and painted, and a drum he made and designed. The nine feathers pay homage to the nine original Tlingit tribes, he said.
Tom Gillen Sr. and Glenda Gillen met at a teen dance one weekend in Ketchikan. It was either the end of 1957, or the beginning of 1958, he said. He remembered when they married - that was 1959.
Their life in Wrangell has lasted a lot longer than the dance. The couple has been married 62 years and have five children: Three boys, two girls; 13 grandchildren; "I've got 27 great-grandchildren," Glenda said.
"Twenty-eight," corrected Tom.
"Twenty-eight great-grandchildren," Glenda amended. "I missed one."
Glenda, 79, said their great-grandchildren are old enough to be graduating high school. And all five of their children live in Wrangell. "We have kind of a busy house," Glenda said.
Their children call every day, said Tom, 83. "We know they're around. I like that closeness."
The walls of the couple's home are covered in photos of their children, their children's children, and their great-grandchildren. Among the photos are art pieces made by Tom, who enjoys traditional drumming, such as a traditional bentwood box, carved paddles with painted oars and drums.
Tom is Tlingit, and Glenda is half-Haida. His clan is originally from Thomas Bay. Tom said he reconnected with his heritage through the Johnson-O'Malley Native arts and culture program around 2011 or 2012, where Virginia Oliver, a local storyteller, was teaching.
"She was teaching the Tlingít language. I always wanted to do that, and there never was an opportunity for me to do it," Tom said. He said he got books, and tried to learn a few of the songs in Tlingít, as well.
The drum he designed at first had art only in the middle, and he felt the border was bare. "I thought about the feathers," he said. "And my brother Tim said there were nine original clans." After some trial and error - he would make a feather pattern, lay it down, make another feather pattern, lay it down - Tom said he figured out the size of the feather design he'd need to place nine evenly spaced feathers around the border.
The paddle Tom designed was from a workshop which produced 30 paddles to be used by Wrangell's delegation to the Chief Shakes Tribal House rededication in 2013. Brian and Doug Chilton, Tlingit master carvers from Juneau and Angoon, came to Wrangell to teach carving, and Tom learned from them, taking rough-hewn slabs of yellow cedar and turning them into paddles. Glenda said she took some of the classes, as well.
Tom was born in Wrangell, then his family moved to Ketchikan during his senior year of high school, where he met Glenda at the dance. His family moved back to Wrangell, but Tom stayed. "Drove a cab, worked in the pulp mill," he said. "That didn't work out very good, so I moved back here to Wrangell in the early '60s. I worked at the light plant for a while, then I fished for five years, then worked at the sawmill for 30 years."
"I've lived here forever," Glenda said. "(I'm ) a regular person. A mother. A wife. I like to work with children."
So what goes into 62 years of marriage?
"Just love each other and put up with each other," Tom said, laughing. That's the secret.
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