Sometimes, true love can be ageless
In a backyard ceremony in Northridge last Saturday night, Sally O'Steen, 94, walked down the aisle on the arm of Louis Kerker, 100, her oldest, dearest friend. Louis was at Sally's first wedding in 1937. He gave Sally's hand in marriage to Ted Knox, 89 (Former MSFV Rotarian Ted Knox weds!) 
"You know what was the most remarkable thing about our wedding?" he was saying Friday, waiting for Sally to get ready for her standing 10 a.m. hair appointment.
"There wasn't a pusher, walker or cane in the whole wedding party. We all walked without age."
With this group, age doesn't stand a chance. I'll tell you how Sally and Ted met in a minute, but first a little background.
Sally was a siren. In 1935, at 18, the Burbank High grad appeared on the cover of steamy True Story Magazine wearing this off-the-shoulder number that helped sell a lot of copies. Her mother liked it so much she bought every copy of the magazine she could find and tore them up. "My folks wouldn't let me sign a modeling contract," Sally says. "They didn't want me hanging around with Hollywood people."
Fat chance. A couple of years later Sally married a makeup man at United Artists who also didn't want her posing for love story magazine covers anymore. Reluctantly, she ended her modeling career and settled down to a life of marital bliss. Meanwhile, Ted was getting ready to go into the Navy, where he'd serve six years as an aerial gunner and made over 100 carrier landings.
"My folks owned 88 acres in Canoga Park where Fallbrook Mall is now, but they lost it in the Depression," Ted says. "I was born under J.C. Penney's." When he got home from the service, Ted opened a Reseda photo finishing plant in 1948. He'd go around to all the drug stores and picked up the black-and-white rolls of film dropped off for developing. He thrived, owning five photo finishing and camera stores when he retired.
About nine years ago, at a potluck at Northridge Methodist Church, Ted and Sally - both now widowed - met.
"I was holding the door open for people carrying casserole dishes," Sally says. "A friend said, `Sally, I want you to meet Ted."' A few potlucks later, they started dating and hit it off.
"We were having dinner one night and Ted said, `Let's get married.' My family loved him, his family loved me, why not?" The first person Sally called with the good news was her old and dearest friend Louis Kerker, whom the couple had seen earlier this year at his 100th birthday party at the Elks Club in Bakersfield.
"Would you walk me down the aisle?" Sally asked. It had been 74 years since the last wedding invitation. Sure, Louis said. No problem. So that's what he did in the backyard of Ted's Northridge home last Saturday with both their families present.
Almost 285 years of living in the wedding party, and not a walker, pusher or cane among them. They all walked without age.