Tehachapi News

Dae and Jean Lantz celebrate 60th anniversary

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Dae and Jean Lantz celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary recently with family and friends at Mountain Bible Church.

Their seven children, Pat, Pam, Dae III, Dawn, Jon, Tod and Vali planned the program, including a delicious dinner and a tear-jerking slide show.

“It's very difficult to get a glimpse of 60 years of marriage in a timed show,” Jean said. “It brought a roller coaster of emotions. There have been many difficult times in our marriage, but isn't that what they call life?”

Jean said the bottom line is that she and Dae have stuck it out together.

“Now in our golden years, we get to relax and enjoy the fruit of our labor. Thank you kids. We are so proud of you.”

A good man was hard to find

When the couple first met, Dae was a first year teacher at a junior high school in Jean's hometown, Tulsa, Okla.

Jean was a Bell Telephone operator.

“I had not dated much because those were the World War II years and a good man really was hard to find,” Jean said. “He was and still is the epitome of a good man. That is why we have been married for 60 years.”

The couple had only been married for a short time when Dae's father asked if he could come out and be foreman at his ranch in Cameron Canyon.

“What guy doesn't want to be a cowboy?” Jean said. “We both quit our jobs, loaded the trailer with household items and my faithful collie, Taffy, and took off for California.”

During the trip across the desert, the floorboards in Dae's '37 Chevy got so hot, that Jean thought for sure her feet would ignite.

“I completed the trip from Vegas to Cameron Canyon with wet towels over my head,” Jean said.

Ranch living

The Lantz' first home in Cameron Canyon was 100-years-old, and built from one-by-twelves going right down into the ground.

The termites inspired the couple to save enough money to buy enough railroad ties to build a new home.

Thirteen years later, they built their “tie house” up on the hill, designed by Dae and framed by a cousin.

A beam raising was held, with many teacher friends pitching in.

“It was a darling, cozy house with no termites,” Jean said.

In 1994, an electrical spark burned the home to the ground.

When the couple came to the ranch in 1949, there was no electricity or telephones but there was indoor plumbing.

“High on my list of priorities was the absolute necessity for us to have these services. Next was to get the road blacktopped,” Jean said. “There was not much traffic in those days. We could put a gate across the road so the cattle could go back and forth. Only one neighbor lived above us and he didn't mind opening the gate.”

Friends and neighbors

Jean kept a cow for milking and making butter, but she fretted because she couldn't raise any fowl because the predators always got them. And the squirrels destroyed the gardens she planted.

Gladys and Jack Harrington were their closest neighbors.

“Gladys always had a wonderful, bountiful garden. She showed me how to cook and eat artichokes,” Jean said. “I'd never seen one before.”

The next closest neighbors, the Powers, lived five miles away. Their ranch was where the big windmills are on Tehachapi Willow Springs Road.

“They had one son whom they drove to our big driveway to catch the school bus each day,” Jean recalled. “My two little ones must have been feeling territorial because my 3-year-old little girl threw a cow pie at the strange little boy and he in turn threw a rock at her.”

That afternoon, Jean waited at the bus stop for the boy's mother to pick him up so she could see what her boy had done.

“Her head was cut so there was lots of blood. It looked awful but she didn't even need stitches,” Jean said. “It's a wonder that Audrey Powers even liked me, but she became one of my dearest friends!”  

The Harrington children, Starr and his wife Deloris, and John and his wife Diane came to Jean and Dae's 60th wedding celebration.

Some of the best years of their life together

When the cattle market dropped, Dae accepted a job at Lockheed and the family moved to Reseda, CA for about two years.

When Ruthe Chesnut told Jean there was an opening at Wells School and that Dae could have it if he wanted to go back to teaching, the couple moved back to the ranch and started building their new house.

“Those were some of the best years for our family,” Jean said. “We made many good friends with other teachers. Ruthe and J.T. Chesnut, Jane and Bob Lockhart, Karlyn and John Horton and many others.

During one of the frequent pot-luck parties with their friends, a big snow storm hit hard, and the Lockharts were snowed in with the Lanz family -- for a week.

“Dae and Bob drove the tractor to their car so they could make it to their job each day at school. Jane and I would plan the evening meal and keep five little kids entertained. At the end of that week you would either hate each other or love each other,” Jean said. “We became life-long friends.”

Life-long friends is exactly how best to describe Dae and Jean.

“What can I say? Blessed with eight beautiful children, a devoted husband and my own good health,” Jean said adding, “It's all good!”