Their endless love

Kris O’Donnell

Corona del Mar residents John and Olivia Poole today celebrate 60

years of marriage that are cocooned in voluminous memories.

“When we first got married, John had to do all the cooking: I

couldn’t cook an egg,” said Olivia, 82.

“I was a returning vet [from World War II], and she was only 17,

and when we arrived in the States, she didn’t know anything about

American dishes; I had to teach her,” John Poole, 86, said of his

English-born wife.

The close bond that exists between John and Olivia Poole

practically allows for the mutual reading of each other’s mind.

“If I forget something, she’s able to recall it instantly -- and

vice versa,” John mused. “Sometimes, she knows what I’m going to say

before I say it.”

Eyeing each other, they reached across from opposite sides of the

table, held hands and laughed. The symbiotic bond that they share is

clearly expressed in their eyes as well as their touch.

“We’ve had our ups and downs, but who hasn’t,” Olivia Poole said.

“But the good times far outweigh everything else. We’ve had a heck of

a time.”

The Pooles’ Corona del Mar home offered a 180-degree view of the

ocean while they were having lunch on the patio. The couple lived on

the Balboa Peninsula from 1946 and 1949, before moving to Corona del

Mar.

“We were the first ones that we knew of to have a TV out there,”

John Poole said. “We tried to buy an RCA, but they didn’t want to

sell us one because they said we lived more than 50 miles away from

their transmitter and they didn’t want their customers to get a bad

impression of them.

We erected a giant receiver and finally talked them into it, but

they only wanted to sell us one,” he said. “We wanted two, but they

said no -- well, we talked them into that, too.

“The crazy thing was that in ‘49, during a strong wind, the tower

came crashing down and we were shocked to realize that we got better

reception than before.”

“All our neighbors used to come over to watch TV because we were

the only ones that had one,” Olivia recalled.

In 1952, John Poole founded the KBIG AM and FM radio stations,

whose studios were on Sunset Boulevard. The station’s AM transmitter

-- ridiculed by all as crazy -- was and still is on Catalina Island.

“The offshore radio transmitter allowed us to reach a far wider

coastal audience than an inland receiver,” John Poole said.

The FM receiver is still atop Mt. Wilson. John also founded what

was then an all-news UHF television station KWHY. It now exists as a

Spanish-format station.

One of their memories of the station was the sponsoring of a

round-trip water-skiing race to Catalina in 1954.

“We got fed up with the Hollywood life and sold [the station] in

‘68,” John Poole said. “In 1968, on advice from my attorney to invest

the money, I purchased some land in the Temecula Valley and opened a

winery.”

Today, the Mount Palomar Winery is part of a 173-acre wine estate

featuring vineyards, the winery, a hospitality center and picnic

grounds.

Mount Palomar, the first winery in the Temecula Valley, was passed

to their son, Peter Poole, who has more than 25 years of experience

in the Temecula wine industry and has lead the way in establishing

modern vineyard techniques, as well as introducing Italian and Rhone

grapes. The winery produces 14,000 cases of wine annually.

The Pooles have enjoyed global travel over their 60 years of

marriage.

“We’ve even gone around the tip of South America on a cargo

transport ship in ‘84,” John said.

The Pooles said Tuesday that they planned to have a simple dinner

for their 60th anniversary today -- unless their children surprise

them with something, as they did for their 50th.

“We never expected to live this long,” John Poole said, with

Olivia nodding in concurrence.

The walls of their house and garage are covered with memorabilia:

pictures, posters and knickknacks from their life’s experiences and

world travels, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

“If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t change a thing,” Olivia

Poole said.

* KRIS O’DONNELL is a Daily Pilot intern. He can be reached at

[email protected].