By CASEY NEILL
AHMET and Emina Vehabovic married after a week-long courtship when he was 23 – and she was just 15.
On 18 October the Nobel Park couple celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.
“We just understand each other, what can I tell you?” Emina said.
“Sometimes we argue, but we love each other.”
Serbian-born Emina’s Bosnian aunty set them up.
“First she wrote a letter and said ‘I have one nice man who’s just finished the army and he would like to marry’ and asked my mum if she would let go to Bosnia to marry him,” she said.
“My mum said no because I was the youngest.”
A week later her aunty visited Serbia and asked Emina to return to Bosnia with her.
“I said ‘yes, I want to go’. My mum worked, brother worked, sister worked and I was at home,” she said.
“After one week, I married him.”
They lived in Bosnia for six years before moving to Australia in July 1970.
“When I came to Australia I brought $2 Australian from Yugoslavia,” Ahmet said.
The plumber had dreamed of moving to Australia for its beaches and nice weather.
Emina wasn’t so keen.
“I didn’t want to come. It’s too far. In Australia we had no relatives,” she said.
“For two years I cried because I wanted to go back home.
“It was very hard because we were both working in Yugoslavia. I worked at a charcoal grill.
“We had everything, but when we came to Australia we had nothing.
“He never got a job as a plumber. We got work in a factory.
“We worked at Repco in Murrumbeena. We worked together there.
“We changed factories from one to the other.”
Emina said they couldn’t speak English and classes weren’t available.
“The government didn’t look after us very well,” she said.
“We worked very hard. I worked men’s jobs in factories.”
They saved $3000 and bought a house in Noble Park, where they lived for 10 years.
“After that we went to Bosnia. We didn’t have children or family,” she said.
“We built a house and we stayed for eight years. When the war started we lost everything.
“My husband was imprisoned for two or three weeks. I knew nothing about him and I cried a lot because maybe they were killing him.”
Emina was injured in a mortar attack.
“It was a very hard time. I had shell in my eye and body,” she said.
“I had an operation for cancer in my stomach from stress.
“I’m alright now, touch the wood.”
They fled Yugoslavia on a bus to Germany and returned to Australia in 1993.
“We were working cleaning houses. We bought this unit in 1997,” she said.
“Now we have everything. That is life.
“Now we’re very happy.
“We had hard times, but one should be water and one fire.
“My husband is a little bit aggressive, but I’m a very quiet person.”
They talk about their problems, and complete household chores together.
“When he does the gardening I help him. When I clean the house he washes the windows,” she said.
They celebrated their milestone at a Bosnian community celebration on 18 October.
“We’ll go to Fiji or Malaysia for a holiday next month,” Emina said.
