We gather tonight to celebrate the vibrant and enduring union of two lives whose paths converged across half a continent.

He was named Grover, after his father. He was born in Los Angeles, and raised in the desert heat of Blythe, California.

She was named Clara, because her mother thought it sounded pretty. She was born and raised on a farm near Wilmot, Arkansas.

They, like others in this room, were part of that earnest generation, born between the two great wars in the first half of the last century. Growing up during the tumult and hardship of The Great Depression, they were each their mother’s second child. And each lost their father while still in youth.

They met in San Luis Obispo, in the summer of 1945. Her family had moved there when she was thirteen; his, during the closing year of World War II. She had just finished her sophomore year of high school. The war now over, he was newly discharged from the Navy where he had trained to be an aviator.

They met in church – the First Baptist Church of San Luis Obispo. She says, "When he came into church, I gave him a good, long look. . . and I think he was looking, too." He says, "there was a group of high school kids in the second or third pew. Some girls were talking and giggling, and then they turned and looked my direction. I noticed her because she was the cutest one."

Soon, they were a couple. He would drive her home from the weekly church youth socials in the 1941 Plymouth he borrowed from his mom. While he studied engineering at Cal Poly, she continued high school. A year of friendship and courtship passed quickly.

Completing high school in just three years, she left for college at the University of Redlands. He remained behind, completing his engineering degree and taking a job in Sacramento. For three years, they saw each other only on holidays and school breaks.

Then he transferred to Los Angeles, sharing an apartment in Rosemead with his sister, Martha. During Clara’s final year in Redlands, they saw each other often on the weekends. Sometimes he would drive out to Redlands in his big blue ’46 Dodge sedan. They might explore the back roads around the orange groves near town, dining at some small restaurant in a converted farmhouse. Sometimes, they would drive back to L. A. for the weekend. She might borrow the Dodge and return to Redlands for the week, leaving him to commute downtown by Red Car trolley.

In January of 1950, they became engaged. He says the proposal wasn’t a single event, but a series of discussions over time. She says, "One weekend soon after the Christmas break, he told me he had kind of assumed that we would get married when I graduated from college, but he thought he’d better check and see if I thought so, too." They married where they met, in the First Baptist Church, on the Second of July, 1950.

Starting a new life together, they found an apartment (and then a second, cheaper apartment) in Glendale. He joined Ralph M. Parsons, where he would work for the rest of his career. She taught school in Glendale for a year.

Finances were tight, but they managed to have filet mignon once a month, and a trip to the Big Boy once a week. He liked his salads. At the Big Boy, that meant a quarter head of lettuce, smothered in Thousand Island dressing. In the spring of that first year, she prepared him a treat that his mother used to make: chilled artichoke. He tried it, and finding it a bit tough, he asked, "How long did you cook it?" Answering question with question, she replied, "Cook it???"

In October of 1951, they had their first and favorite son, Lyle. December of 1953 brought their second, and other favorite son, Roger. And at the end of May in 1957, their darling daughter, Laura, was born. We grew up together, as most siblings, squabbling and scrapping, each secure in our privileged status as most favored child.

They taught us love, by loving each other and loving us. Similarly, they taught us respect and reason. They taught responsibility and leadership through their service and dedication at Hacienda Heights Baptist Church. They taught us good manners. We learned that when Dad would ask during dinner if anyone else wanted the last of the salad, the correct answer was "No, thank you." All these lessons they now teach to their favorite grandchildren, Christopher, David, and Daniel.

Lessons in compromise and sharing and getting along with others came, too, during immersion courses called "family vacations" -- a station wagon full of kids and clothes, and camping equipment, traveling across wilderness for hours or days at a time; all of us singing and playing alphabet games and 20 Questions. Other crash courses included family gatherings, where each group of cousins had to teach the younger ones the desirability and practicality of storing olives on fingers. Much to my Aunt Val’s chagrin, all the cousins survived and prospered on those lessons.

So, too, did Clara and Grover’s love and marriage survive and prosper. When asked how they resolved conflict, they agreed that talking things out had always worked best. They sought consensus and accord, or new understanding. Failing that, they would "agree to disagree, but agreeably," and one would compromise for the sake of the other. Additionally, Grover offered some hard-learned wisdom. "Some times she would go off and pout. Then I knew it was time to go to her and apologize, even if I wasn’t quite sure what I was apologizing for." They chose to value their love and commitment above any conflict or hardship, and so their relationship has endured.

Ladies and gentlemen, friends and family, tonight we celebrate this milestone of love, as it continues into the new millennium. Please join me in raising your glasses. Fifty years and counting, I give you Mr. and Mrs. Grover C. Rains.