Golden Couples

1954: RAY and MARGARET KIRBY

Margaret Larabee was 3 when her parents, Oscar and Beryl, moved to Pacific Palisades in 1930. After earning degrees at Pomona College and the University of Colorado, she became a laboratory technician in plant biochemistry at the UC Riverside Citrus Experiment Station. This led to a fateful June day in 1952, when Margaret was helping to decorate a USO dance at the YWCA and she met Ray Kirby, who was stationed at nearby March Air Force Base. ‘There was a big ladder on stage that needed moving,’ Margaret recalled this week, ‘and there were several servicemen standing off to the side, so I asked them to help. Ray stepped forward and hauled it away, and pretty soon we were dancing.’ ‘And we’re still dancing,’ she said, her eyes lighting up. Ray, who was separated from his first wife, began taking Margaret to ballroom dances and square dancing three or four times a week. ‘He was a nice man, and very good looking,’ she recalled. Their romance survived two long separations (he spent seven months at a mechanics school in Texas and then three months in England) before they were married on June 19, 1954 in the Community Methodist Church on Via de la Paz. Rev. Leonidas Brock officiated, and Ina Biding sang two wedding favorites at the time: ‘Always’ and ‘Because.’ A week before the wedding, C.D. Clearwater, editor and publisher of The Palisadian, wrote in his June 11 column: ‘Next week, there are three important weddings coming up. All weddings are important so far as we are concerned. Our hope is always that each wedding may be the last that the two principals may take part in; and in Pacific Palisades a surprisingly large percentage of them work out that way. Much greater than the general average.’ Clearwater would be happy to know that Ray and Margaret Kirby, one of the couples he cited, celebrated their 50th anniversary in June with a gathering of family and friends at the Methodist church. Back in 1954, the Kirbys drove up Highway 1 to Little River and Mendocino for their honeymoon, then returned to Riverside. When Ray got out of the Air Force in 1956, they moved to Santa Monica and Margaret joined UCLA’s neurology department as a laboratory technician. She soon went to work at Douglas Aircraft, only to be laid off four months later because she was pregnant. Meanwhile, Ray attended Art Center School of Design and was hired by Rocketdyne as an industrial artist in 1958. He worked for various aerospace companies until he retired from Northrop in 1994. The Kirbys moved to a home on Swarthmore in August 1956 and lived there 23 years until 1979 when they moved with Margaret’s mother to their current home on Erskine. Their daughter Ruth was born on November 6, 1956, and a son Ray Edward was born in 1959. ‘Ruth arrived on election day, but I was able to get an absentee ballot at the hospital in time to vote,’ Margaret recalled. The couple have been actively involved at the Methodist church. Ray ushered for several years with Ray, Jr., and now sings in the choir, along with managing the sound system. Margaret has chaired several church committees and once served as membership secretary for 15 years. They also work hard on the three homeless dinners hosted by the church every year. ‘I’m in charge of the kitchen,’ said Margaret, ‘and Ray cuts the meat and runs the dishwasher.’ Ray was Scoutmaster of Troop 23 and has been active in American Legion Post 283 (serving as commander in 1978-79) and Riviera Masonic Lodge 780, while Margaret has been president of the P.E.O. chapter five times and served on the Community Council for several years. She also reads textbooks to blind students and reads at nursing homes. The Kirbys’ daughter, Ruth, and her two children (John Dean, 12, and Jennifer Dean, a third-generation student at Palisades Elementary) now live with them, while Ray, Jr., lives in Palm Springs. The two boys from Ray’s early marriage have given him 11 grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren. ‘ ‘We’ve had a very happy life together,’ Margaret said, ‘and we hope to continue our love affair for many more years.’ What has been the secret to their long marriage? ‘We learned to trust each other,’ said Ray. ‘We had friends and we did things separately, but they were just friends; they didn’t come between us. Another thing: never sleep on your anger’settle your differences before you go to sleep. ‘That’s for sure,’ said Margaret, who added: ‘We’re always there for each other and we don’t have any real arguments. The last one was in 1992, when I was exhausted, and before that it was over 20 years. When Ray gets mad, I just keep my mouth shut. If we get mad at each other, we never stay mad for very long.’ After all, there’s always a Big Band dance coming up at the American Legion hall.