At the age of 100, Melvin McMullen has decided that he’s a lucky man. Lucky he survived the China-Burma-India Theater during World War II. Lucky he got home to meet his future wife. Lucky they made their home with their three sons in Whittier. Lucky to have traveled the world.
At the age of 101, Jennifer Conaway McMullen calls it good fortune. Her good fortune to be born into a good family, to meet a good man, find work that not only made history, but also a wonderful family and community.
Their own luck brings them here today, May 13, their 80th wedding anniversary, still never too far from the other, still attuned to each other’s gentle teasing.
Mel had heard about this lovely girl from Ohio from his older brother Jim, who had met Jennifer and deemed her a perfect match for his sibling. When Jennifer and her friend Janie started renting a room in the McMullens’ Los Angeles home, the boys’ mother, Marie, was charmed.
By then, Jennifer had finished working as a riveter at Lockheed Aircraft Corp. in Burbank, one of the storied female aircraft workers symbolized by the iconic Rosie the Riveter poster.
It all came together when the war ended and Mel sailed from China, hitchhiking his way back to the family home on Hoover and 79th streets.
“I had my duffel bag in my hand,” Mel said. “I open the door and saw Jennifer. I’d heard about her from my brother and then my mother, of course.”
One look at the brown-haired girl with hazel eyes and then-Sgt. McMullen said he knew.
“When I saw her, I said, ‘Oh boy, wow, there it is.’”
It was pretty close to love at first sight for his bride, too.
Their happily-ever-after even included Mel’s brother Jim, who fell in love with Jennifer’s roommate, Janie. The two couples got married in a double ceremony at a little chapel on a Salt Lake City military base on May 13, 1946.
Jennifer bought two identical dresses, one in blue for Janie and yellow for her, with a row of flying ducks printed down the front.
“I was working as a legal secretary so I made fairly good money, but it still must not have cost very much,” Jennifer said. “I bought it at the Broadway store at Fifth and Broadway in L.A.”
Each bride wore a corsage on one shoulder. Mel, a civilian now, wore a dapper pinstriped suit. Jim, still in the service, was in his dress uniform.
That wedding launched both McMullen couples into long, happy unions. Mel and Jennifer settled in Whittier in 1950 and set about raising their three sons. Mel worked at a title insurance company and Jennifer as a schools analyst until their retirement in the 1990s.
All along, they were active in family life: scouting, service clubs, the symphony, each school’s PTA and yearly road trips to visit Jim and Janie wherever they were stationed.
By the time their eldest son, Tim, was 17, he reports, the family’s trusty Buick had driven them to every state save Alaska and Hawaii.
“What was so dynamic about our family was that they were a pair,” said Tim, 79. “They were in it together, and it generally wasn’t a battle of wills. It was kind of democratic, ‘Let’s figure this out.’ And that worked well. It helped us.”
Mel says it helps to keep an open mind.
“Just remember you’re one, you’re equal, and that’s important,” he said. “You’re not the higher, you’re not the lower.”
Jennifer recommends choosing a good man. Her boys turned out really well, she said, “and that’s due to their father,” she says, patting her husband’s knee.
Mel demurs: “I wouldn’t say it’s due to the father.”
Jennifer smiles: “A little bit.”
When asked what the hardest part of being a mother has been, Mel interrupts: “Putting up with the dad!”
The couple also spent many years traveling the world, amassing souvenirs from Adu Dhabi to New Zealand, all over Asia and Europe, and even Antarctica, experiences that helped them keep an open mind to people.
Although they keep close to home these days, they will travel to New Orleans next month to celebrate Mel’s 101st birthday and the American Spirit Award for Jennifer, given by the National World War II Museum.
Jennifer will represent Rosie the Riveters when she receives the 2026 American Spirit Award alongside composer John Williams and former NFL player and ALS advocate Steve Gleason in New Orleans on June 5.
“But our greatest adventure is 80 years of marriage,” Jennifer says. “We’ve had more good days than bad days, I’ll tell you that.”
Their work, their family, their home. Those are what’s true: warm sunshine, simple joys, useful work, family, each other.
Sitting side by side on the sofa in their home at the Oakmont in Whittier, Mel and Jennifer said liking the same things, from what to eat or what to do, means very few arguments. (Jennifer will say she wins few of those, anyway.)
“Having each other, I think is right on top of the list,” Mel added. “The last few years, we figured that being together is present enough.”