Helen and Sergio Gonzalez on their wedding day in 1949. (photo: courtesy Olivia Watts & Laraine Winn)

The long life Sergio and Helen Gonzalez have shared is also a time capsule of 20th-century American life.

There are colorful stories about chaperoning your sister on dates in the 1940s, dipping a dead pig into boiling lye water to skin it, or traveling to Egypt multiple times.

Sergio and Helen Gonzalez have been married for 75 years, most of that time living in San Pedro. At 99 and 94, respectively, this gentle, unassuming couple are vital co-authors of their lives.

Both were born in Watts, years after their grandparents had emigrated from Mexico. Today, they live at their longtime home at 25th and Alma, in an apartment complex that also houses their two daughters and their own families. Sergio still drives at 99. Twice a week, as Jehovah’s Witnesses, they offer their home as a meeting place to study the Bible, or they’ll visit other congregants’ homes.

Sergio and Helen met as unexpected cast-offs at a “weenie bake” when Helen was 16. “The girls laugh at me because we called it a weenie bake, you know?” says Helen. It was 1946, and Sergio was back from the war.

They were the only teenagers who couldn’t go in the water at the beach cookout. Helen wasn’t allowed to wear a bathing suit yet, and Sergio had burned his leg with boiling lye water while skinning a pig.

Looking back, Helen says of that evening, “No, I wasn’t looking at him for any reason, for attraction. I couldn’t really see him,” she remembers. “It was dark. You know, the firelight, it doesn’t reveal much.” The following day, though, Sergio stopped by the little market where Helen worked. They married three years later, on May 29, 1949.

The Gonzalez family originated in Los Angeles near Century Boulevard and Vermont Avenue. It grew to include six children (four boys and two girls). Sergio had been an Air Force mechanic working on B-52s and cargo planes during the war. His first job was with Northrop Grumman on the twilight shift.

“But a twilight job is no good for a family,” says Sergio. So he left Northrop Grumman and found work at RCA repairing radios. Eventually, he went to work for TWA in its radio division, taking care of navigation and communication equipment in company aircraft. He worked there until he retired in 1986. “Thanks to him, I never had to work,” shares Helen.

When the family arrived in San Pedro in 1968, the fishing boats and canneries were in full operation, and there was no smog. “We could smell the fish, though,” says daughter Olivia Watts. “I liked San Pedro because I felt it was a little more intimate than where we were. It was a smaller town,” says Helen. “We just enjoyed it.” Once Sergio retired, he and Helen began to travel the world. This was the time when airline employees could travel the world on the cheap. At 99, “He [Sergio] still wants to travel,” says Helen. “I’m the one that wants to stay. He would be willing to go.” There have been challenges, mainly that of losing one of their sons to a heart attack. Aaron died in his 60s, but “to me, he’s still a baby,” says Helen.

Helen and Sergio Gonzalez today. (photo: courtesy Olivia Watts & Laraine Winn)

Marital success secrets? If you must argue, do it in Spanish and in the bedroom. Let your wife talk as long as she needs to. “It’s how you treat your wife, like a part of your body, you know,” Sergio says.

“Fortunately, he was a good husband,” adds Helen. “He’s a calm person. He doesn’t get all excited or mean.”

The nonagenarians are unphased about all the hoopla surrounding their diamond anniversary. (ABC7 recently did a story about them.) They’re clearly in it for the long haul. They enjoy their family, which includes 14 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren. It’s a sparkling and steady example of devotion in today’s fractured world. spt