March 18, 2004

70 years of marriage filled with ‘lots of love, respect’

By Terry McGuire

TACOMA — When they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, Wanda and Adrian Luchino received a family coat of arms created by one of their children and his military heraldry staff.

The coat, among other elements, incorporates the colors of the flags of Italy, France and Poland to denote the couple’s European ancestry. It also includes a cross to symbolize the influence of religion in their lives, a laurel and torch representing their voluntary service to church and community, and a motto, “A Stout Heart And A Cheerful Spirit,” to describe their attitude toward life.

Twenty years later, on the cusp of their 70th wedding anniversary next Wednesday, the Luchinos’ continue greeting life with stout hearts and cheerful spirits.

“I’ve been married 70 years — to the same woman!,” jokes Adrian, 89, as Wanda, 88, laughs.

Stout? When they moved into their East Tacoma home just off McKinley Avenue back in 1938, it was a tiny shell of a house. So Adrian put his handyman talents to work, adding a second floor and digging a basement by hand, then later transforming one of the rooms into a beauty shop so that Wanda could operate her business out of the home while raising their five children.

Members of Sacred Heart Parish since 1938, the Luchinos sent all their children through Sacred Heart School, and all but one went through Catholic high schools. They can see the church (less than two blocks away) through their kitchen window. Its close proximity was one of the reasons they settled in the neighborhood.

The couple has left a legacy in the parish and wider community through their involvement in various ministries and projects.

Wanda has long served on the Mother’s Club and the Altar Society, of which she is still a member. Adrian, a member of the Knights of Columbus, served on the Father’s Club and has lent his carpentry and plumbing skills to helping remodel the parish hall.

The couple joined with neighbors to help develop McKinley Avenue Playfield across the street from their home. They wanted to install a wading pool for the children, so the neighborhood raised funds collecting nylons and coupons during World War II and persuaded the city to match them.

In another effort, Adrian and a handful of fellow volunteers from the parish solicited the funds and the donated materials to construct a Boys Club for East Tacoma. They went on to build the spacious building — now the Eastside Boys & Girls Club — with their volunteer labor.

“It’s all volunteer — from the roof on down to the ground,” Adrian says proudly.

They also raised another $50,000 to get the club through its first year to make it eligible for United Way support.

Today, in a park near the top of McKinley Hill, Adrian’s name is among those inscribed on a stone monument honoring the area’s outstanding citizens.

Though the two met during the Depression, when any job was hard to find, one could say Wanda Zak and Adrian Luchino were in the chips when they first got together.

Both were working in the potato chips department at Nalley’s; she a recent graduate of Pe Ell High School, he a graduate the year before of Lincoln High School in Tacoma.

One day, Adrian heard that the boss’s brother had been assigned to drive Wanda home late that night because she was working the swing shift and was new to Tacoma.

“I sidled up to the guy and said, ‘Hey, I’ll take her home,” Adrian recalled last week, chuckling. “That’s the way I found out where she lived. And then the next (day) there’s a knocking on the door and guess who was there? Me!”

He said last week that it was Wanda’s beauty and the fact she was of Polish ancestry that first attracted him. “I always liked Polish girls. I had a sweetheart when I was about 12 years old and she was Polish.”

As for Wanda, she was struck by Adrian’s manner. “He seemed like such a nice guy.”

Following a ten-month courtship, they were married March 24, 1934 in St. Leo Church in Tacoma.

While working at Nalley’s, Adrian took a home study course to earn a diesel engineer’s license, then worked for a Tacoma shipyard for about 20 years.

The couple purchased an apartment building and made their living in property management after that. Wanda still recalls painting units at two in the morning.

They credit their 70 years of marriage to “lots of love” and “mutual respect.”

“We really have a respect for each other,” Wanda said. Like most couples, “we’d fight every once in a while, but we never made it personal. We never called each other names or things like that.”

Their daughter, Cathy, adds that her parent’s “unshakeable faith in God” and their love of music and dancing also account for their enduring union.

Adrian bemoans what seems to be a scarcity of dance halls today. When he was in high school he formed an 11-piece band that played the many halls around the region. He played sax and clarinet and was the singer. The group stayed together for about ten years into his marriage, “but then it got to be too much of a chore with Wanda and the kids at home,” he said.

He still has the old instruments down in the basement he dug. But he “can’t interest the grandkids in them,” nor can he play anymore, since a long-ago shipyard accident cost him the tops of two fingers.

The Luchinos, whose children, Jerry, Fred, Cathy, Michael and Rosemarie now range in age from 45 to 69, have 14 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren.

Unlike the 300 or so who attended their golden anniversary, their family and a few close friends will help them celebrate their 70th with a dinner and dancing on March 27 at the Sheraton in Tacoma. Plans are in the works to have the couple and their children and their spouses all renew their marriage vows together at Sacred Heart Church.