Alumni in love, 46 years later

“She’s the best thing that I got out of the university,” said 86-year-old Jack Kates, sitting at the head of the wooden dining room table. “I got my degree, my credential and my wife.”

His wife, Marilyn Kates, 79, fought a smile and tried to crawl further into her timid shell.

The couple has been married for 46 years. They reside in a corner house in Cypress framed in lush greenery, not far off from where they first met— at Cal State University Long Beach.

“Me being a romantic, I offered to buy her a cup of coffee,” Jack, a true poet at heart, said. “She said, ‘Not today.’”

He visited the library that day, where Marilyn worked part-time as a reference librarian during her studies for a master’s, to work on a paper for his education class.

The bright-eyed cavalier persisted, offering to help put the books away. “We [set a later] day; [I spent] 30 or 20 cents total. That was our first date.”

In fall of 1953, Marilyn was one of the 114 students standing in the long lines for registration at Long Beach State College, the official name of CSULB at the time. It was the first semester that the college was accepting students for a freshmen class.

Wooden, portable bungalows lined up on what is now known to be lower campus. Construction plans were in progress up the hill to build the Language and Fine Arts buildings, a library and the University Theater, formerly known as the “Little Theater.”

Enrollment was capped at 2,200 students overall in her first year, which was over 15 times more than the original pioneer group in 1949. Instead of paying tuition, students paid fees of $12.50.

She majored in Education, a popular subject at the time, worked on a teaching credential for primary grades and returned later for her master’s degree in the ‘60s for teaching general elementary.

Marilyn’s main challenge in college was getting there. She commuted via bus from Seal Beach to the college, but the line’s time-consuming route detoured through downtown Long Beach before reaching the campus.

She took summer classes, studied in between coffee breaks and confined her time to necessity.

“We had a few typewriters in the library,” Marilyn said. “When Xerox machines came out, that was a big deal. People would go and practice putting their faces in.”

Starting out in circulation and then working in the ordering department, her fondest memories involve working in the library.

“It’s just nothing like it used to be,” she said after revisiting the now five-story structure. “I cannot believe it. It’s incredible.”

By her graduating year, all of the temporary buildings had been replaced by permanent ones, and student life had shifted to upper campus and the newly renovated library and cafeteria.

Her academic strategy was a swift one—to get in, get out and transition from student to teacher.

For the next 41 years, Marilyn taught at a handful of different elementary schools in Newport and Corona Del Mar.

“You don’t teach every child the same way,” Marilyn said in reference to the challenges she faced as a primary-level teacher. She explained how many parents felt personally attacked whenever she raised concern for a child who she thought needed to repeat kindergarten, or granted a “Gift of Time.”

“They just didn’t realize that students don’t develop at the same rate,” Marilyn said. “You have expectations, but you learn that certain children can’t meet all of those expectations. But that’s fine.”

Hard at work, Marilyn often came home exhausted.

“She worked the long hours … up at 6 a.m., and home by 6 p.m.,” Jack said. During hockey season, the dedicated Los Angeles Kings fans would grab their season tickets and rush over to the games where Marilyn often dozed off, despite rowdy fans, period buzzers and brisk, “barn” conditions.

“Marilyn wake up! There’s a break away!” Jack remembered saying. “And then she would go back to sleep.”

Music has played a leading role in the Kates’ lives. They are current members of the Opera Board at CSULB.

“There’s too much testing. There’s not enough music,” Marilyn said. “Music does teach children to learn other things but [the arts are] the first things that get cut.”

Jack organized the production “Dazzling Young Opera Stars” at the Gerald R. Daniel Recital Hall in September. CSULB President Jane Close Conoley and Regina Cole, Bob Cole’s wife, were guests at the event.

Mr. and Mrs. Kates often revisit the campus for all things involving the CSULB Opera Program or the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music.

“It’s a different world.” Jack said. “People just going back and forth; it’s like New York.”