Mike and Cris Shardelman of North Kitsap recently celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary.

They were married July 1, 1950, at the bride’s home in Littlerock. Mike Shardelman was employed by Northern Pacific Railroad. They lived in the greater Centralia area for their first year of marriage, where son Michael was born in June 1951.

In the fall of 1951, they moved into a railroad boxcar, and lived there for five years, moving around for Mike Shardelman’s heavy equipment operator profession. Daughter Teresa joined the family in October 1954.

They then moved to the greater Centralia area for several years, where daughter Karen was born in December 1959.

In 1961, he began working at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard as a crane operator and the family moved to the North Kitsap area. Cris Shardelman was a homemaker, church and youth volunteer and citizen lobbyist for education issues.

In 1977, the Shardelmans moved to the Philippines, where he was a Department of Defense employee at Subic Bay Naval Base for two years.

While there, they toured several Asian/Western Pacific countries, including Australia, Korea, Japan and the Philippines.

In 1979, Mike Shardelman returned to PSNS and retired in 1987 as a Supervisory Quality Assurance Specialist over all nuclear reactor servicing equipment at PSNS.

The couple remains close to their family, which has grown to include Mike’s wife Bonnie, and Karen’s husband Alex; grandchildren Jake (Erin), Jared, Briana, Kelsey (Jeremy), Kevin (Sarah), and Megan; and great-granddaughter Danica.