Alice Medrano didn’t know it when she first watched the family of 10 moving into the house across the street on Alessandro Place in Pasadena. She was about to meet the man of her dreams.
“The whole family was just happy, and there were so many of them, seven boys and one girl,” she said. “So of course I found every excuse to go across the street and get acquainted.”
The family were the Del Reys of El Paso, Texas. In 1936, their patriarch Enrique died, leaving his widow Julieta, called Julie, and their youngest child only 8 months old.
“They didn’t have much, but what little they had, they thought it was fine. And it was,” Alice said.
By the time she was 15, she knew which Del Rey brother to pick: Art, the third-born son with thick wavy hair and a winning smile. The two married at the Pasadena Courthouse at the height of World War II, before Art shipped off to the U.S. Navy.
“Maybe I proposed?” she asked with a ladylike shrug. “Turns out I chose the best. He was a good husband and father, so smart, and we had fun.”
Art Del Rey, her husband, father of four, World War II hero, longtime Arcadia businessman and member of the first barbershop quartet to sing in Spanish and English, died six months after his 100th birthday on Sunday, Cinco de Mayo. Funeral arrangements are pending.
At Art’s centennial celebration, five of the next generation of Del Reys serenaded him barbershop quartet-style with “Down Our Way.” Art, wearing a birthday crown and special T-shirt, sang along.
“He enjoyed it so much,” their youngest daughter Pamela Del Rey-Johnson, of Monrovia, said. “He talked about it for weeks on end.”
Alice, now 97, called “Aunt Lee” in the family, said her 81-year-marriage succeeded because “you just made it happen,” and her husband knew how to make money “so I can get a bigger diamond.” But jokes aside, she said Art had an indefatigable work ethic, something their eldest daughter Barbara Dorazio said she saw growing up.
An underage Art got special permission to deliver the Herald Examiner’s midnight edition along Colorado Boulevard, then took to selling salve door-to-door. After winning a red wagon in a contest, he bought oranges and sold those from his new prize.
Art attended McKinley Junior High School and Pasadena Junior College a year behind Jackie Robinson. He and three of his brothers signed up for the U.S. Navy during World War II, Art serving as a bombardier with the PBY Black Cats Squadron, which completed stealth missions in the South Pacific.
“We wrote each other every day,” his bride remembers. “We would tuck in little gifts like gum inside, to we would remember each other.”
Gene Glasco, retired Arcadia City Clerk, said Del Rey was a business icon and World War II hero who once scored a direct hit on an enemy submarine in the Pacific, earning a U.S. Navy Air Medal for “meritorious achievement while participating in aerial flight.”
All the brothers returned safely home from war. They opened their own gas station and paint and auto body shop in Pasadena. Alice remembers getting a call to help during busy hours and “I’d take the bus to Washington, and pump gas in my stillettos. It was fun.”
In 1963, after a time selling cars, Art decided to get into real estate and Arcadia’s oldest, continually-running real estate business was born. Their daughter Pamela heads Art Del Rey Realty on Foothill Boulevard.
From the 1950s to the 1990s, four of the brothers, including Art, Ernie, Ray and Gus, formed the Del Rey Brothers barbershop quartet, performing at Disneyland, Pasadena Playhouse, San Gabriel Mission and one time shared the stage with the Osmond Brothers.
“They were singing all the time, always harmonizing,” nephew Michael Del Rey of Diamond Bar said.
The group stopped performing in 1992, when Gus passed away. Art then found more time to be a good sport in many sports. He ran his first marathon at 65, walked one at 77, biked it at 80 and then changed things up and ziplined to celebrate his 90th birthday. Art also liked racquetball, golf, skiing and got so good at tennis he played briefly on the senior circuit.
“He was competitive in everything he did. He thought outside the box and he couldn’t take no for an answer,” his daughter Pamela said.
Age dialed down the swing dancing and ziplining adventures, but not their love story, their daughters said. Art would still request mariachis sing the bolero song “Aquellos Ojos Verdes” to Alice any chance they got, because of her own green eyes.
Nephew Michael Del Rey said his Aunt Lee and Uncle Art prove marriage can be done right.
“You can sense and see a solid foundation there,” he said. “They’re proof that sometimes, it simply works.
Their children, four grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren would agree.
Their daughter Pamela said their final afternoon together was spent in the garden and then indoors over dinner, catching up on the Kentucky Derby.
When she stood to say goodbye, her father told her, “’Well, you made my day.’”
Alice Del Rey said her Art made a recent appearance in her dreams, as befitting the man who had starred in so many in her life.
“I opened the front door and there he was, in a little car, not the black T-bird we had before, just a small car, and he smiled and waved and I raised my hand and said, ‘Bye Dad, I’ll see you,’ and he drove away.”
