1951 – Ralph and Norma Nahigian
The 53 years that Ralph and Norma have been married’soon to be 54 on November 11, Armistice Day, almost never were. Ralph, a Rhode Island native who was attending business school outside Chicago, first spotted Norma at St. James Church in Evanston, Illinois. “I saw her at the organ and I knew I had to get her name,” he recalls. They dated for five years, and then, Norma says, “I gave him an ultimatum about marrying me.” Five years was long enough for courtship, according to Norma, who was also dating a man from Detroit who had already asked her to marry him. It wasn’t that Ralph didn’t want to pop the question but, as Norma explains, “He didn’t think he should get married until his older brother did.” Ralph’s father had died when Ralph was young and his older brother had raised him. On a harsh, windy day in December 1950, Ralph took Norma out to Lake Michigan. “We were standing on a jetty along the shore,” Norma says. “The wind was blowing, it was so cold’and he asked me to marry him.” Ralph’s brother was married in April, and the following November the Nahigians exchanged vows in St. Luke’s Church with 250 people in attendance. All of Ralph’s family came from Rhode Island by car and were surprised with an early snowstorm. As they left the church, Ralph says, “I carried Norma over a snowdrift to get her into the car.” “We came out to California on our honeymoon,” Ralph says. “When we saw how beautiful it was, we made a plan to eventually come out here to live.” The couple first moved to Rhode Island, where Ralph worked in the family business’a laundry and dry-cleaning plant. They had two children, Laura and James, but all the while they were saving money for their move to California. They knew that things were more expensive on the West Coast, and they didn’t want to make the mistake that so many other transplants did, which was not to have saved enough money and have to go back. When Laura was ready for kindergarten, the Nahigians decided to make the move. In November, Norma flew out with the two children and left them with her mom at the Lindomar Lodge, a hotel that no longer exists on the corner of PCH and Sunset. She then flew back to Rhode Island and joined Ralph for a cross-country drive in their station wagon. “When we drove out, I had my 60 African violets,” Norma remembers. “I couldn’t leave them behind.” Ralph had built crates to put them in, and every night when they stopped for the day, he had to carry them into the motel. “It tells you how much he loved me to drag them in every night.” As Ralph recalls, “We were in Indiana someplace, around two in the morning. We were dead tired, and it was cold.” A hotel manager looked out his window, saw Ralph bringing the crates to the room and called the state police. They got a knock at the door a short time later from a trooper who wanted to know what kind of contraband they had. Once out here, they settled in a two-bedroom, one bath home at 653 Radcliffe Ave., which they purchased for $25,000. “It was the best place,” Norma says. “The kids walked to school and there were nice neighbors.” Ralph also remembers, “It was before Temescal Canyon Road was built and raccoons came up to the house; mothers would bring their babies.” Discovering that the dry-cleaning business was more expensive here than back East, Ralph got into the plastics business instead. For 40 years, he owned the Plastic Mart, which started in a two-car garage on Colorado Avenue in Santa Monica and grew into a successful plexiglass fabrication business (including surfboard construction and materials for boat repair). After helping her husband with his company, Norma started a business making decorative objects like paperweights out of polyester resin. Her workplace, also on Colorado, didn’t have a toilet, heat, or water; if she wanted any of those “luxuries,” she had to wait until lunch. The Nahigians worked long hours, six days a week, but Sunday was always a family day. Norma’s extended family all eventually moved to California, so on Thanksgiving, they would have 30 people in their little house on Radcliffe. The sink always gave them problems on that holiday. Ralph looks at Norma and asks, “How’d we get through those days?” She looks at him and says, “I don’t know, Ralph, I don’t know.” He replies, “We were young then, I guess.” They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary at the Riviera Country Club, where Ralph surprised Norma with a necklace. On the chain is a gold circle with a diamond in the center. “I didn’t expect it, because I thought the party was it,” Norma says. Ralph tells her, “You deserved a medal for putting up with me for 50 years.” “Don’t think there haven’t been difficulties,” Norma says, “but you get by them.” She recalls that when she was in Trader Joe’s shopping, a clerk stopped her to look at the necklace and asked her how she managed to stay married for 50 years. “I’ll tell you what works,” Norma told the clerk. “If you can forgive your other half anything, you can stay married. We all have faults.” Ralph winks, “I keep telling her, you’re still on probation.”
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