Still Married After All These Years : In Hard Times and in Good, Their Unions Held Fast

About a year ago, Rabbi Lenore Bohm of Temple Solel in Encinitas began noticing the number of congregants asking for her blessing on their 50th wedding anniversary.

So she began counting. She realized that, in her congregation, which reflects a North County population with significant numbers of seniors, there were 20 couples whose marriages had endured 50 years or longer.

They were marriages begun at a time when the world was rocked by some of the same issues it confronts today--in the Persian Gulf and at home.

The stories of the couples’ lives include accounts of the Depression, World War II, the baby boom, revolutions in Europe, establishing careers, community involvement and, eventually, migrating to North County for what one described as “the easier years.”

Tomorrow night, the 20 husbands and 20 wives who together have been married for more than 1,000 years will be honored at the temple. The Shabbat, or Sabbath, service will be embellished with music and melodies to celebrate this occasion, according to cantorial soloist Kathy Robbins.

In talking to the couples as she arranged for the special service, Bohm said, she sensed a feeling of simplicity in their love and loyalty to one another. “There was also a strong sense of perspective, a sense of humor and flexibility,” she said. “Some are yet deeply in love and others appear to be good friends.”

Among the couples to be honored tomorrow are Michael and Gladys Goldin, Joseph and Annette Goodman, Benjamin and Evelyn Leff, Hal and Dee Sackett, Alex and Muriel Sladkus, Tibor and Claire Vayda, Michael and Helen Vissell and Mort and Agatha Winski.

For most, the moment of their initial encounter is still recalled in vivid, youthful detail. They marvel at the swiftness of time and have theories as to why their marriages succeeded, but, as one wife said, “no pearls of wisdom.”

*Michael and Gladys Goldin

Married June 29, 1941 Brooklyn, N.Y. World War II broke out less than five months after they were married, remembers Michael Goldin. “Marriage was so wonderful that I didn’t want to go at all, but I enlisted in the Air Force, and Gladys joined the WAVEs.”

The uncertainty of that period creeps into conversation. “I worried that I would be sent overseas, and we would never see one another again. I encouraged Gladys to join the WAVEs to give her a steady anchor and provide her with food and clothing.”

“We were apart for a long period of time. But I was to get another chance in life,” Goldin said. “I could not believe I was alive when the war was over. I was going back and getting to finally start my married life with Gladys.”

After the war, the Goldins moved several times and eventually settled in Las Cruces, N. M., where Michael worked for the government.

“I went into the service with one form of education and exited with another kind of skills. I had to look around for employment. At times, it was discouraging.”

He quit work at age 57 and the couple moved to Carlsbad.

They are reflective as to why their married life has been successful.

“We were big-city people, having come from Brooklyn. We were living in a small farming community far from our families in Las Cruces. We had to depend on one another,” Michael said. “My parents had set a good example. My mother and father had very hard times, and they just stuck together. They never thought of finding another.”

The Goldins agree that sharing the same religion may have been helpful in their relationship, especially in raising their three children. “It removes some of the problems on which people can disagree if they are the same religion. Whose religion will be followed? What will the children do?” Michael said.

“My wife has been trying to change me for 50 years,” he laughed. “But you need to take one another, flaws and all. Those first years are rosy, but that glow soon disappears. It has to be more than just a physical attraction. There has to be an understanding as well.”

*Agatha and Mort Winski

Married April 27, 1941 Jackson, Mich.

“I was engaged to someone else at the time I met my husband,” recalled Agatha Winski. “I was working in Chicago and took a vacation to Florida.” She paused, as though remembering the excitement of the meeting. “We were married seven weeks to the day after we met!”

“I really don’t know why our marriage has been successful,” she said. “We wanted to make it work, and, when there were differences, we talked them out.”

The Winskis raised four children in Michigan City, Ind., where Mort worked in the steel business with his three brothers. “We started in the scrap business and then grew to include steel fabricating and manufacturing,” he said.

They speak of the early years of married life, of starting in business and having young children. “We couldn’t afford baby-sitters so we took them everywhere. On Saturday nights, we’d bundle them up and get together with other young families, putting the babies in play pens, beds and even drawers when they fell asleep,” Agatha said.

In addition to their own children, the Winskis “fell in love” with an 11-year-old Japanese student they met one summer during a Children’s International Summer Village, a program designed to bring together children from around the world in the hope that they would one day become leaders without desire to wage war against one another.

Mieko Nakasone came to live as an exchange student with the family in Indiana. The Nakasone and Winski families developed strong ties over the years, including the years that Mieko’s father served as prime minister of Japan.

“We always dreamed of living in California,” said Agatha. Twenty years ago, they moved to La Costa, where they lived for 15 years in a condominium. Then, deciding they would be happier in a house, they built in Olivenhain.

Mort made many of the pieces of furniture in their home, as well as a Koi pond in their yard. The couple are avid gardeners, and especially proud of their friendship garden.

“When we built this house, I told our friends and family to not give us housewarming gifts, but rather a succulent or cactus cutting. We put a steel marker by each cutting to note its giver. Our friends love coming over to see how their plant is growing.”

Spelled out in plants in front of the house is “Agamor”--a combination of the names Agatha and Mort. And, in Spanish, the Winskis point out, haga amor means “make love.”

*Alex and Muriel Sladkus

Married Oct. 22, 1933 New York, N.Y. Alex and Muriel Sladkus were married 58 years ago at the Broadway Central in New York. They had met during the summer on vacation in Asbury Park, N. J.

“When we married during the Depression, we lived in a flat and paid $37.50 a month and had a coal furnace,” recalled Alex.

He said his wife had always had everything she wanted as a girl, and, until then, had never even seen a furnace. “ ‘You leave the furnace alone and let me do it,’ she told me when I was trying to work and keep a furnace going at home. So she shoveled the coal during the day, and I’d do it at night.”

Working his way up from training at Gimbels department store, Alex eventually established himself in the shoe business and owned a chain of stores. During World War II, he worked in a defense factory during the day and sold shoes at night.

“The first day of work on a swinging grinder in the defense plant was very hard on my hands. In those days, women’s shoes had many laces. I could barely lace the shoes I was trying to sell those first few nights,” he said.

On the wall of their home is a framed letter from President Truman thanking Alex for his volunteer work for the Office of Price Administration during the war. Over the years, Muriel became involved in numerous charitable organizations, including the Red Cross, the American Cancer Society and the Deborah Society.

While raising their two sons, the Sladkuses lived near their families in New Jersey.

“I had the best mother-in-law in the world,” Alex said.

“I can say the same,” added his wife.

It was family that brought them to Carlsbad. They moved to the area to be nearer Muriel’s brother, who lived in Del Mar.

Later in life, Alex developed an interest in sculpting. He has displayed and sold numerous sculptures in alabaster, agate, marble and onyx. One of his pieces, a sculpture of a rabbi blowing a ram’s horn, adorns the lobby of Temple Solel.

When asked if being of the same religion was a positive factor in their relationship, Muriel replied, “It’s helpful to be the same religion, yet we have a son who married someone of another faith and has been very happy.”

She cited an even more fundamental factor: “We never took each other for granted.”

*Evelyn and Benjamin Leff

Married March 20, 1937 Chicago, Ill. “It was during the Depression that we met,” said Evelyn. “We met at a wedding of perfect strangers. Everybody crashed weddings in those days. We’d all dress up and be members of the wedding party, freeloading, but no one seemed to mind. Everyone just prepared for another 50 people. This was our social life.”

“I grew up a lot after I married,” she said. “Before I married, like most young people, I lived at home. Everything I earned went into the family pot. Once I married, I had the whole $7.50 I was earning a week for myself. It was very luxurious. I even started to smoke.

“They were good times. We had to be creative to find things to do that did not cost a lot. We never viewed them, though, as hard times. Everyone had the same conditions.”

“Then the war broke out,” she said. “We still have the ration book. We came all the way up from nowhere--humble beginnings--to raising a family and educating our (two) children.”

Evelyn Leff is philosophical and reflective about the endurance of their marriage, which included 35 years of working together in a Monterey Park business before moving to Carlsbad 12 years ago. “We’re well taken care of and enjoy good health. We’ve worked hard at keeping it together. You learn to look the other way a lot. The times were good for us.”

Today, she works as a secretary at Temple Solel.

“When Ben heard I had a job, he said, ‘If she can do it, so can I.’ He’s 74 and very tenacious. So he applied for a job and got work at Builder’s Emporium. He loves it. He enjoys taking time to wait on the customers.”

Evelyn sees the marriage as having come full circle.

“As you grow older, you become more of what you were when you were younger. There is not time to show idiosyncrasies when you’re busy raising children. Then, as your responsibilities decrease, you have more time to indulge in your mishaga --craziness,” she said.

*Joseph and Annette Goodman

Married Sept. 8, 1940 Philadelphia, Penn. Annette Goodman met the man she would marry on a blind date.

“My friend arranged for these fellows to go out with us. It was raining. Three fellows walked in the door. I paired with Joe. He had the car,” she said.

“I asked her to marry me on our second date,” Joseph said, recalling the evening Annette accompanied him to a wedding, resplendent in “silver foxes draped about her neck.”

Their wedding came after a year and a half of tenacious courting by Joseph.

“I’d have a date arranged with her, but have to sit on the front porch until her other date brought her home,” he said, looking fondly at Annette as she beamed

“Twelve dollars,” Annette said, looking at her wedding picture. “I rented that size 9 wedding dress for a whole day, including brand-new shoes, for $12.”

“They have been perfect for one another,” said Sylvia Cutler, Annette’s sister. “They are the kindest, most loving, giving people I’ve met.”

“Our families are very united,” Annette said. “Living together in Philadelphia, we depended on one another.”

The Goodmans’ move to Carlsbad allowed them to be nearer their two sons, one of whom is married to Rabbi Lenore Bohm.

“I think I have more friends here than in Philadelphia,” Joseph said of his life in Carlsbad, where retirement has allowed additional time for friends. He works two days a week in his physician son’s office. “I have a terrific schedule working for my son. We even have time to have lunch together.”

Annette has pursued an interest in painting, which she discovered in a night class in Philadelphia. “I signed up for a psychology class when the empty-nest syndrome began to surface some years ago. When I walked into class, everyone was involved in an art project. I decided to stay.”

She summed up marital life by saying: “Nothing is easy. We cannot minimize how many traumas we had. Fortunately, nature provides a second spot where we can put bad things behind. Otherwise, we couldn’t survive.”

*Hal and Dee Sackett

Married Feb. 26, 1938 New York state Hal and Dee Sackett had two marriage ceremonies in a small town in New York: The first was a civil ceremony on Feb. 26, 1938, the second a Jewish ceremony on March 20, 1938.

Hal’s experiences during the Depression included hopping freights around the country, which landed him in the House of Corrections in Plymouth, Mich., for 10 days.

Later, as a machinist, he supplemented his income by selling shoes on the weekends.

“Every Saturday, the same girl came in with a friend and tried on shoes. Never bought a pair. I was working on commission. Finally, in disgust, I asked her what she was doing in the store. ‘You can’t talk to me that way,’ she said. ‘I’ll report you to your manager.’ Well, I wasn’t worried since the manager was my brother-in-law. He pretended to reprimand me and she left the store.”

“A couple of weeks later, a friend arranged a blind date for me. Who do you think was the blind date? Right. The girl from the shoe store. I didn’t try to sell her shoes that night, though, and was a perfect gentleman.”

They saw each other every night for three months, then married.

“I think I married the right girl,” Hal said. “Our Social Security numbers are almost the same, too. It was meant to be.”

The Sacketts raised two sons in Los Angeles while he worked as a steel salesman; Dee worked 34 years at Liberty Mutual insurance company.

They moved to Carlsbad in 1987. “My wife fell in love with the area the first time we saw it,” said Hal.

What made the marriage work?

The Sacketts replied in unison, “Fighting and making up!”

*Tibor and Claire Vayda

Married Dec. 25, 1939 Budapest, Hungary “I met her on the train. She was a beautiful young girl,” Tibor said. He jokingly refers to that moment as a train crash.

The early years of the Vaydas’ marriage in Europe were interwoven with the social and political upheaval occurring on that continent. Now, in the later years of their marriage, they see a new war, this one in the Persian Gulf, and one in which Jewish civilians are again singled out as targets of violence.

“I’ve lived through World War I, World War II, the Holocaust, four years in Hitler labor camps--in Hungary and Poland--and the Hungarian Revolution,” said Tibor. “I’m not personally involved in this war, but I am emotionally involved.”

In addition to the United States, the Vaydas have lived in Hungary, France and Canada.

“On Nov. 25, 1956, my wife, two children and I escaped the Hungarian Revolution by way of Austria,” Tibor said.

While living in Toronto, he helped start a Hungarian-language Jewish newspaper. The Vaydas eventually settled in Los Angeles, where Tibor was an art dealer. They lived in the same apartment in Los Angeles for 25 years. Vayda speaks of the “wonderful country” that allowed their children to be well educated.

The couple moved to Carlsbad three years ago to be near their daughter.

After 50 years of marriage, Tibor still marvels at the beauty of the woman he married.

“My wife is very beautiful, inside and outside,” he said. “We raised two beautiful children.”

*

Michael and Helen Vissell

Married Sept. 28, 1940 Brooklyn, New York “At first I didn’t like him because he was a redhead,” Helen said of Michael, the boy who lived across the street. “ ‘Who needs a redhead?’ I thought. I’m reddish blond. Yet by the time I was 16, we started to keep company.”

Helen is a retired schoolteacher. When she starts to feel lonely, she visits the Carlsbad schools as a volunteer. Her husband became an artist at age 40 after a career as an ITT telegrapher. He has several paintings in the Randolph Close Gallery in Carlsbad and also has pieces in a gallery in Massachusetts.

For most of their marriage, the couple lived in Brooklyn, where their three children were born. The Vissells’ move to Carlsbad 13 years ago was prompted by the desire to be nearer their children.

“We love each other, that was the catalyst to our success, we realized a long time ago,” Michael said, adding that these have been “50 short years.”

“My husband’s joke is we don’t agree on anything but we love each other,” said Helen. “We speak our minds. We are two strong individuals who learned to make compromise because of love. We have a sense of humor and have never gone to bed mad.”

She underscores her point by softly singing the lyrics to the Harry Woods tune from 1927, “Side by Side”: “We disagree each in our fashion, but try to show some compassion. We take turns being right, then hug at night, side by side.”

Has there been one year better than all the rest?

“Oh, this was the best year, this year is the best, the year we are in,” Helen said. “Such wonderful memories.”