The best is yet to come

This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press
Tuesday, November 3, 2009.

By AMBER HOFFMAN
Valley Press Staff Writer

Palmdale residents Albert "Al" and Harriet (née Evans) Schweikert have a marriage like a fine wine - it has only gotten better with age. The Schweikerts, who are both 93, celebrated 72 years of marriage on Sept. 6 and are still going strong.

After all these years the couple still laughs together.

"We like to argue." Harriet said, with a giggle. "When you're married, you say what you want to."

Al joked the couple has stayed together for so long because each was deaf in one ear.

The couple was introduced in 1936 by Harriet's brother-in-law, Pete Houser , who was working with Al at a dairy in Pasadena. The brother told Harriet about an eligible young bachelor he worked with at the dairy. A date was promptly arranged.

Al said he was invited to Harriet's home for gingerbread. Harriet and her mother were in the kitchen, anxiously awaiting Al's arrival.

"They thought I was going to come in the front door," Al said. "But I was used to going in the trade-door, or back door."

Al said he gave the women quite a start when he showed up at what was considered the proper entrance for workers, not guests.

Less than a year later, on Al's 21st birthday, the young lovebirds were married at the Congregational Church in Pasadena.

"When I asked her to marry me she said, 'I thought you would never ask!' She was cute and she was going to get the best of me," Al said.

According to Harriet, the wedding was a simple affair. A family friend made the wedding cake and the newlyweds honeymooned in the Sequoia National Forest.

Al was transferred to the Antelope Valley with the United States Postal Service in 1954.

The rest of the Schweikert clan, Harriet and three daughters, Tawna, Coyla and Debbie , followed in 1955 after the house was sold.

Al said when he worked at the Lancaster Post Office on Lancaster Boulevard, there were only nine postal employees in the Valley.

Al talked about meeting many of the Valley's colorful characters while working at the front window of the post office including the famous (or infamous) Florence "Pancho" Barnes, airplane racer and proprietress of the Happy Bottom Riding Club, and Myrtle Webber, the former owner of the Western Hotel in Lancaster.

Before relocating to the Valley, Harriet worked in the gift wrapping department at The Broadway department store in Pasadena on weekends. Once she and the girls moved to the high desert, Harriet worked for the Antelope Valley Turkey Growers Association as a gizzard cleaner, a job that lasted six years.

Al and Harriet said they loved taking their daughters camping at national parks like Sequoia, Yellowstone and Yosemite just as the couple had done for their honeymoon.

When Al retired from the Post Office in 1973, the couple bought a motor home and started travelling across America and into Canada and Mexico.

"I've been retired longer than I worked," Al said.

According to the couple, highlights of the cross country excursions included Mount Rushmore, the Carlsbad Caverns, Gettysburg, Washington D.C. and the Florida Keys. The only state the pair hasn't traveled to is Alaska.

Their middle child, Coyla DuFrene , said her parents would be traveling for six to eight weeks or so at any time and often arranged to meet their daughters and families for vacations.

About ten years after Al retired the couple sold the motor home and now occasionally travel with their daughters and their families on vacations and to family reunions.

Al and Harriet live in a handsome house in Palmdale their daughters and sons-in-laws built in 1987. The charming couple enjoys playing cards with one another and eating at their favorite restaurants including Alice's Burgers and Hometown Buffet.

DuFrene and her husband, Holly , live in a house on the same property as Al and Harriet and often take their parents to visit their oldest daughter, who lives in Leona Valley. Their youngest daughter Debbie Nelson lives in La Habra Heights with her family.

The Schweikerts have three daughters, six grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. Whenever the couple has visitors from out of town they take them for a drive on the musical road in Lancaster.

Tawna Mattarocci , Al and Harriet's oldest daughter, said she thinks she knows her parents' secret to a long and happy life and marriage.

"I think they're very compatible - even if they fight about things," she said.

Mattarocci also suspects her mother and father come from families with great genes. Many of Al and Harriet's siblings lived well into their 90s.

What advice does the couple have for young newlyweds?

"Throw all the guns and knives away," Al said.