Be Mine: Why we celebrate St. Valentine’s Day

By Liv Stecker

Before you write off Valentine’s Day as another invention of American corporations in the quest for perpetual revenue from mass produced greeting cards and several thousand tons of seasonal candy, take a moment to consider the long, if not convoluted, history behind the holiday. Long before it was chocolates and diamonds and fancy dinner dates, Saint Valentine’s Day became a celebration of enduring love.

Valentine of Rome was a Christian saint in the 5th century who was martyred in 496 AD for his faith. He was buried on February 14th, and the anniversary of his death was observed by the Catholic Church after he was canonized. According to legend, Saint Valentine wore an amethyst ring embedded with the image of cupid. He officiated at the illegal Christian weddings of Roman Soldiers, who were forbidden to marry, as the Emperor Claudius II believed that married men did not make for good soldier material. It was said soldiers would recognize him by his cupid ring and request the performance of his secret nuptials. The amethyst later became the birthstone for the month of February, and is said to bring love. St. Valentine is said to have cut hearts out of parchment and given them to the soldiers that he ministered to, beginning the tradition of heart shaped cards.

Eventually Valentine was imprisoned for his Christian ministry, and while in jail, he is said to have healed his jailer’s daughter, Julia, from blindness. A letter sent from his jail cell to the girl was signed “from your Valentine”, perhaps the first Valentine ever sent. After his death, Julia planted an almond tree with pink blossoms near his grave. The almond tree is still symbolic of undying love and friendship.

The Catholic Church removed St. Valentine’s day from the General Roman Calendar in 1969, but the holiday was well rooted in tradition across the globe by that time. Speculation has tied the holiday to the ancient Roman feast of Lupercalia, a three day celebration of fertility in mid February, but there has been no traceable connection to this observance and the later resurgence of the romantic theme appointed to February 14th by poets and lovers who were far removed from Rome’s pagan roots.

The first romantic association with the church holiday of St. Valentine’s Day wasn’t until nearly a thousand years later, when Geoffrey Chaucer, the English poet, penned the verse: For this was on seynt Volantynys day, Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make. ["For this was on St. Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate."] Later, scholars would argue that the Valentine he referred to was not Valentine of Rome, but the feast of St. Valentine of Genoa, who died nearly 100 years before Valentine of Rome, which was observed in early May, a time more likely for the mating of birds in Britain.

Whatever the reference really meant, Valentine’s Day was securely established as a celebration of love on February 14th by the beginning of the 15th century. Following Chaucer’s lead, French and English poets latched on to the theme and over the next 200 years, references to Valentine’s day, featuring birds and romantic love surfaced across Europe. The oldest surviving Valentine came from Charles, Duke of Orleans, referring to his wife as his  “very sweet Valentine” while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London in the 1400s: Je suis desja d'amour tanné, Ma tres doulce Valentinée… Even Shakespeare gave a nod to the holiday in Hamlet in the early 1600s.

Mass productions of romantic poetry, cards and love notes was well underway in England by the end of the 18th century, and in 1847, the first commercially produced Valentines were available in the United States. It wasn’t until the late 1900s that the traditional note giving escalated to chocolates and jewelry. This became a trend in the United States when the candy and diamond industries saw potential for growth. It is estimated that over 190 million Valentines were sent in the United States in 2015, not including homemade exchanges between school age children. The average amount spent on a Valentine’s day gift in the US last year was $131.

However you choose to observe (or not) the festival of love that is Valentine’s Day, the story of St. Valentine, perhaps embellished over the years, is a good excuse to let the ones we love know that we are thinking of them. It’s also a good chance to break out the scissors and glue stick and show our love with a little bit of creativity and personal attention. Maybe we don’t need diamonds and puppies to tell our Valentine’s how much they mean to us, but since the middle ages, we’ve been using poetry to get our point across. The cliche “Roses are Red” rhyme began in 1590, with Edmund Spenser's epic poem The Faerie Queene, but was adapted into a nursery rhyme in 1784 from Gammar Gurton’s Garland:

The rose is red, the violet's blue,

The honey's sweet, and so are you.

Thou are my love and I am thine;

I drew thee to my Valentine:

The lot was cast and then I drew,

And Fortune said it shou'd be you.

Meet Country Chevrolet: The Service Department

By Liv Stecker

Any machine is only as effective as the parts and pieces that power it and how well they work together. Problem solving, troubleshooting and easing the worries of customers, the Service Advisors at Country Chevrolet are excellent communicators and multitaskers. Functioning as the link between both new and repeat customers and the automotive technicians, Service Advisors facilitate effective two-way communication and dependable care for every vehicle owner. At Country Chevrolet, the service department takes pride in not only the care they provide their customers, but the teamwork that accomplishes more than the sum of the individual effort. This is synergy, and this is the service department.

Becky Bacon

She might not be a Colville native, but Becky Bacon is no stranger to the small town. Relocating to the Colville area for the first time in 1983 from her hometown in Nakusp, British Columbia, Becky followed her husband from Stevens County to Alaska and several stops in between the first few years of their marriage. In 1986 they landed in Colville to stay and shortly after, Becky got a job in the service department of what was then LaDuke and Fogle Motors. But that wasn’t where Becky’s experience in automotive repair began.

In addition to working for Phillips Field in Alaska, a repair center that offered service for light and heavy duty vehicle, Becky worked for Kelly’s Care Care in Colville when they first came to Colville. Always a tomboy, Becky says that she was in and around all types of vehicles her entire life, from ATVs and snowmobiles to boats. The “favorite pit girl” of her husband Wade, Becky loved being involved in the snowmobile and boat races that he participated in. With five children and eight grandchildren between the two of them, Becky says what she is most passionate about in life is family and sharing life with them.

After living in Alaska and Northern Canada, Becky says the best part about the Colville area is the four distinct seasons that it brings, rather than the “early winter, mid winter, late winter and summer” seasons she experienced in the far north. The changing seasons provide more opportunity for Becky and her family to camp on the lake and share off road adventures.

After 20 years as a Service Advisor at Country Chevrolet, Becky takes pride in the care that she offers to customers, some of whom she still serves after 20 years and several evolutions of the business. “It’s important to me to give them the right advice at the right time, whether it’s for repairs or when it’s time to buy a new car.” She says. “I absolutely love my customer base, and I sleep good at night knowing that I’ve done my best to take care of them.” And it isn’t just the customers. 20 years at the same business has made Becky consider her co workers as part of her extended family. “We have a lot of mutual trust and respect for one another,” she says, and after all, that’s what family is all about.

Eli Rice

Eli Rice was born in Colville, and although he’s moved away a time or two for different reasons, something kept pulling him back. After graduating CHS in 1993, Eli set out in Spokane to build a family. Raising three kids, Eli spent more than 10 years working for Discount Tire, and later the service department for Appleway Automotive Group. But when his first marriage ended he found his way back to Colville and a job with what was then Booth and LaDuke Motors. When business at the dealership  slowed down that winter, Eli was laid off, so he moved out of the state to work until the tragic loss of his son, Conner in 2011. Eli knew at that point that the most important thing in the world was being close to his family, and moved home to Colville where he worked for Boise Cascade and then the railroad before coming back to work at Country Chevrolet in the service department.

“When you really get right down to the nitty gritty,” he says, “everything you NEED in life is here. It’s home.” And for Eli, at the top of that list is people. “Family, which includes my closest friends, is the most important.” Eli married his wife Kellie in 2012, and between them they share 5 kids and one new grand baby. If you ask Eli what he enjoys in his spare time his answer is “anything that involves adrenaline.” Snowmobiles, 4 wheelers, and recently Rzr rides are at the top of his list.

His love for speed and machines makes him a good fit as a service advisor at Country Chevrolet, where again, Eli says it’s all about family. “We are like a family, we take care of each other, we have each other’s backs,” he says of his co-workers, and the best part of his job? “We take care of our customers - which means you - our friends.” As a service advisor, Eli is a liaison between the customer and the automotive technician. He sees it as his job to “translate the worries and needs of a customer to the tech,” and vise-versa, to let the customer know exactly what the technician is seeing under the hood.

Jason Ferguson

Another native of the area, Jason Ferguson was born and raised outside of Kettle Falls in the Greenwood Loop area. After graduating from KFHS in 2002, he worked for Columbia Cedar and Boise Cascade before he took a job with Major Drilling based out of Salt Lake City, Utah. With a wife and two young daughters back at home, drilling was a good way to get ahead of the bills, but it was a long way from home for a country boy. Working in Utah, Southern Idaho, Nevada and Arizona, Jason finally decided he had been gone for long enough and needed to come back home.

He took a job in the sales department at Country Chevrolet, where he says he “jumped in head first,” with no experience, but he liked the company. After a few months, the dealership saw him as a good fit for the service department and moved him into a position as a service advisor along with Eli and Becky. “I’ve always been a car person, I like working on them, and I like being able to communicate with the customers.” Jason is able to use his hands on experience to translate mechanical needs to customers.

An avid outdoorsman, Jason spends as much time in the woods, hunting, fishing and camping as possible. That’s why he’s spent most of his life in this area. “I’ve never really gone away, I love the small town atmosphere where everybody knows everybody.” And this neighborly feeling carries over into his work. “I really like all of the people I work with - I am doing the same job every day, but every day is a little bit different.” He says that the fast paced days at Country Chevrolet keep him going, and the community involvement of the business is important to him. “They help their employees and they help the community tremendously, and it’s nice to see a local company that gives back.” He says.

Stop by Country Chevrolet to find out about the great services offered and talk to Becky, Eli or Jason. Or you can call 509-684-8404.