Golden Couples

1953: KIT and JERRY FESTA

When 9th grader Jerry Festa gave Kit Morgan a ride home on his bike the night she graduated from 8th grade in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, this was the beginning of their love story. Being too young to date, they would meet at the local movies in a group, until Kit was a junior and Jerry a senior in high school. After graduating, Jerry played semi-pro baseball and entered Seton Hall University, where he majored in education, planning to become a teacher and coach. This was during the Korean War and he had to join the Marine Corps reserves in order to remain in school and graduate. Meanwhile, Kit went to work and remained at home to help care for her three younger brothers (including twins born to her parents three days before Kit graduated from high school). Kit and Jerry finally married on February 1, 1953 in North Plainfield, New Jersey, the day after he finished college. Three months later he entered the Marine boot camp in Quantico, Virginia, before transferring to Camp Pendleton. Kit worked in the office of the post exchange and attended college until Jerry completed his service in 1955. When the couple returned to New Jersey, it was September and too late to sign a contract for teaching, so Jerry found a job with the Metropolitan Life Insurance company in Newark. Meanwhile, Kit was busy raising three boys’Robert, John and Richard’and a daughter, Joy. In 1961, after an especially rough winter, the Festas decided to return to balmy California, where Jerry was promised a job with MetLife in Santa Monica. His parents soon moved to Mar Vista, followed six months later by Jerry’s brother and family who moved to the Palisades. The whole family used to meet every Sunday at either of the brothers’ homes for the usual Sunday pasta dinner cooked by Momma Festa and then Poppa Festa after her death. ‘We all have happy memories of the large family gatherings,’ Kit says. ‘There were seven cousins and always a few friends to share in the good food and the good times.’ Jerry was an assistant manager for MetLife when he found their first house in Pacific Palisades in 1962. Always an athlete, he played volleyball at the Santa Monica YMCA with a State Farm manager, who suggested Jerry try his hand at being a casualty agent for State Farm. That’s how he acquired his agency in Pacific Palisades, which he has owned for almost 40 years. Kit worked in the office until she retired in 1996. The Festas have always been active in volunteer work in the community. Jerry was a member of the Optimist Club for many years, helped found the Pop Warner football program here and was instrumental in taking over the Palisades Fourth of July Parade from the American Legion, along with Ray Haddad and Jim Whitman. Kit was PTA president at Palisades Elementary, a member of St. John’s Hospital Guild, Las Doradas and the Palisades Junior Women’s Club, and a Girl Scout leader. She is also involved in Project Linus, making blankets for babies and children in hospitals, shelters and the children of servicemen sent overseas. After becoming a leader of disaster preparedness efforts in Pacific Palisades, Kit was named a Golden Sparkplug and, in 1989, Citizen of the Year (with Flo Elfant). Most recently, she has started a local fun-loving Red Hat group, which follows the advice of the poem ‘Warning’ by Jenny Joseph: ‘When I am old woman, I shall wear purple, with a red hat.’ Jerry, a tennis player and golfer, still enjoys both sports, practicing his golf daily. This past year he shot his age (73) on the tough Riviera course and he rarely misses his every-other-day workout at the Spectrum Club. The Festas, who have a second home in La Quinta, also enjoy buying and remodeling houses; they have lived in most Palisades neighborhoods. Their extended family includes Terri Festa, owner of Terri’s Restaurant on Swarthmore. Meanwhile, their eldest son, Robert, a master’s graduate of Pepperdine, is a senior colorist at Riot post-production in Santa Monica and married to Karen and has two daughters’Michelle, a recent honors graduate of Loyola Marymount, and Marissa, who just graduated from Chaminade High School. John is an insurance broker here in the Palisades and shares offices with his daughter Danielle, a Berkeley graduate who works for Farmers and is a successful agent for scriptwriters. Joy, a graduate of the Fashion Institute and married to Lee Schroeder, works in Jerry’s office. They have one daughter, Courtney, a senior at Oak Park High School who modeled clothes at her mother’s former store, I’N Joy Kids on Antioch. Rich, a Pepperdine graduate, is a State Farm agent and is married to the former Jeanne Elfant. Their daughter Daniela, a budding tennis player, and son Tony, a sailing enthusiast, are both Corpus Christi students. To celebrate Jerry and Kit’s 50th anniversary, their children and spouses held a party at the family home. Joy baked the family’s favorite carrot cake, Bob read a tribute from the adult children, and the invited guests shared stories. ‘It was a really fun evening and something we will remember always,’ said Kit. For reasons why their marriage has succeeded, Kit said: ‘Tenacity, patience, love’you gotta love the guy’and faith. Faith plays a large part in my life.’ Jerry added, ‘Just hang in there no matter what happens. There are good days and bad days, and you learn to be flexible.’