It takes quite a lot of issues going proper for a pair to achieve 75 years of marriage. However for Nancy and Jerry Kettmann, who celebrated the uncommon milestone March 24, it was greater than luck.
“I think our secret was when we got married we had goals, and we have always looked to the future,” Nancy Kettmann mentioned. “But you have to have tenacity. We were always there for each other, but we had some rocky times, too.
“You learn to see the best in the other person. Everybody has faults, but you learn you don’t have to win an argument. You really don’t need to do that. You have to adapt to each other.”
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San Jose residents Jerry and Nancy Kettmann rejoice their seventy fifth marriage ceremony anniversary at The Villages in San Jose, Calif., on Saturday, March 29, 2025. (Shae Hammond/Bay Space Information Group)
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San Jose residents Jerry and Nancy Kettmann rejoice their seventy fifth marriage ceremony anniversary at The Villages in San Jose, Calif., on Saturday, March 29, 2025. (Shae Hammond/Bay Space Information Group)
Develop
In the summertime of 1949, then 18-year-old Nancy Riveroll was a San Jose State scholar working on the Barron-Grey cannery, chopping the peel off apricots for the season. Gerard Kettmann — then simply Jerry — was one other Spartan working within the cannery, emptying buckets of slop.
“I was really impressed with him because he always wore a dress shirt in the cannery,” mentioned Nancy Kettmann, who mentioned she was somewhat disenchanted when she noticed him speaking in the future to a lady carrying an engagement ring and figured he was off the market. (He wasn’t.)
On the finish of season occasion, a number of cannery staff supplied to drive Nancy house. However she rebuffed all of them, saying Jerry can be taking her house.
After all, he didn’t know that.
“He didn’t even have a car,” she mentioned. “That’s how our romance started.”
The romance led to a marriage on the Carmel mission in March 1950. After he graduated, Jerry Kettmann took his bride to Berkeley, the place he went to legislation faculty and Nancy labored for Kaiser in Oakland. They finally discovered their means again to San Jose, the place Jerry Kettmann’s household first settled within the 1860s, and raised 5 kids.
After working as a deputy district lawyer for Santa Clara County, Kettmann went into personal observe earlier than being appointed to the Municipal Courtroom bench in 1968 — turning into extra commonly and formally generally known as Choose Gerard J. Kettmann.
Final Saturday, the couple — carrying sashes, leis and regal crowns — had been joined by about 50 members of the family for a seventy fifth marriage ceremony anniversary occasion on the Villages, the place they stay. The celebration was largely pushed by former Silicon Valley advertising skilled Heather Kettmann, who’s married to their son Dave, and lives shut by.
For the Kettmanns — Nancy is 94 and Jerry is 98 — the spotlight of the occasion was seeing everybody collectively.
“It was the most wonderful thing. We have these memories now because the party was totally filled with love,” Nancy Kettman mentioned. “We’re still sort of basking in the glow.”
BOOK BASH: Retired Cisco Techniques engineer Steve Ricossa would be the visitor of honor at Librarypalooza, the annual fundraiser for the Santa Clara Metropolis Library Basis & Pals on Saturday on the Triton Museum of Artwork. Ricossa has been concerned with the library and the muse for almost a decade, whereas additionally serving as a board member for the Mission Metropolis Neighborhood Fund and JW Home at Kaiser Santa Clara.
The library basis didn’t must look too far for a visitor speaker, both. That responsibility can be dealt with by Preston Metcalf, government director and senior curator on the Triton, who will not be solely a seasoned artwork historian but in addition the host of the Triton Museum’s E-book Membership collection, which is held the primary Wednesday of the month and tackled Shakespeare’s tragic romance “Romeo & Juliet” for April.
Get extra info on the 5 p.m. occasion at www.lovethelibrary.org/librarypalooza.
JUST FOOLIN’ AROUND: It was refreshing to see some establishments within the San Jose space participate within the time-honored custom — no less than the previous 10 years or so — of creating an April Idiot’s Day social media submit. The Winchester Thriller Home took the chance to tout its new “Winchester Water Park,” with a slide that emerges from the well-known “Door to Nowhere”; the San Jose Police Division made a video saying its new Scooter Division; and California’s Nice America received a enjoyable one in, posting a photograph of its iconic Columbia carousel with 4 additional decks. The Santa Clara amusement park opens Saturday, by the way in which, so you’ll be able to take a look at if it’s shrunk again to merely being a double-decker.
The San Jose Earthquakes’ April 1 submit introduced that the workforce can be bringing again its Nineties-era San Jose Conflict nickname and brand, which for some unknown motive was a purple scorpion. It seems that wasn’t truly a joke; the workforce is honoring its inaugural season when it performed the primary sport in Main League Soccer historical past, defeating D.C. United 1-0 at Spartan Stadium in 1996.
D.C. United will face the Conflict, er, Quakes on Sunday at PayPal Park and there’ll be a halftime occasion honoring Eric Wynalda, John Doyle, Eddie Lewis, John Harkes, Jeff Agoos, Marco Etcheverry and different gamers from that first season. And who was the coach of D.C. United for that sport? That’s proper, present Quakes coach Bruce Area. The primary 5,000 followers will get an inaugural sport rematch pennant, and there can be retro Conflict merchandise within the workforce shops.
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