Community: Longtime Burbank residents, high school sweethearts, celebrate 95th birthday

Longtime Burbank residents Marjorie and Les Jonkey received an early Christmas present with the birth of their ninth great-grandchild, Jackson Andrew Schulze, on Nov. 29.

Jackson was born at 3:40 p.m., weighed 7 pounds, 14 ounces and was 21 inches long. His parents are Jeramie and Melissa “Jonkey” Schulze of Burbank.

The Jonkeys both turned 95 last month and their family celebrated with a party at the Castaway restaurant on Nov. 17. They will celebrate their 72nd wedding anniversary in January.

They grew up in Glendale and met at Hoover High School.

“We were in an English class together,” Les Jonkey said. “She sat behind me.”

“He always had a good haircut and his mother sent him to school with a white dress shirt and a wool sweater,” Marjorie Jonkey said.

A friend asked Les Jonkey to double date, so he asked his future wife to go. They often went to sock hops in the school gym and he took her to the senior prom. He proposed in 1941 and they married.

The couple has lived in Burbank since the 1950s. Les Jonkey spent a lifelong career — 47 years — at Lockheed Aircraft, where he was considered the top manufacturing engineer. He came up with three inventions his wife said he should have had patented. He continues to write for the Lockheed newsletter.

Marjorie Jonkey taught Sunday school at First Christian Church years ago and is now an elder emeritus and deacon emeritus. She is president of Chapter ES of the Philanthropic Educational Organization and is a member and past president of La Providencia Guild, a women’s philanthropic group that raises funds for Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.

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JOYCE RUDOLPH can be contacted at rudolphjoyce10@gmail.com.