A loving team for 53 years — the Mulveys of Windsor Village
CYRIL AND ROSALEEM MULVEY on their wedding day, Feb. 12, 1966.
Rosaleem and Cyril Mulvey, with their pleasant Irish lilts, have lived in Windsor Village for 53 years. The two met as employees of airline Aer Lingus in Dublin, Ireland. Rosaleem worked in the canteen, and Cyril was an engineer.
“I asked her where she danced — everybody went dancing then,” Cyril said. “So I found out where she’d be, and one night when my brother and a friend and I were out, I said, ‘Let’s go to the club on the other side of the airport. I sorta have a date… and maybe she’ll have friends.’ So we went and that’s all it took,” said Cyril.
Rosaleem agreed. “That was it.”
The couple got engaged a year later and, although Irish engagements at that time often lasted three or four years, they were married one year after getting engaged. He was 24, she 20. “My parents had decided to move to America,” said Mr. Mulvey. “If we didn’t get married soon, he’d have had no one on his side of the church,” said Mrs. Mulvey.
During a two-week-long honeymoon to London and Coventry, the couple conceived their first child and, nine months and five days after the ceremony, their daughter was born. Rosaleem and Cyril laugh, thinking back, “At that time, they counted on their fingers, you see. It had to be nine months.”
Many members of Mr. Mulvey’s family had moved to the United States, and they suggested the couple join them here. “We went along with the idea and made plans,” said Mrs. Mulvey. The couple has been here ever since.
For the first year, they lived in and managed one of the rental properties the family owned. But in 1970, they bought their Windsor Village home. Mr. Mulvey was working at American Airlines and, when their daughter was a bit older, Mrs. Mulvey got a job as a manager at a restaurant on Wilshire Boulevard. Their son arrived seven years after their daughter, and the couple recalls walking and going to Harold Henry Park with the kids.
The couple recounted some of the things that keep their relationship strong. “We do a lot of walking. We started that together in about 2004 after he retired,” said Rosaleem. She had been walking for about 10 years prior. “I wanted to do it,” said Cyril. “But she nearly had to drag me, and then she used to bring a candy.” Rosaleem added, “I’d have to bribe him, you know.” Mr. Mulvey chimed in, “We’d go up to Wilshire and then up to Third and then we went up to Beverly — all the way round.” Mrs. Mulvey continued, “I’d say, ‘Just a little bit more.’” “And then at the end, I got to like it,” said Mr. Mulvey. When asked when he got the candy, he said he got it on the way back. “If I gave it to him on the way up he’d turn around at The Ebell and go home.”
Because of the perks from working for American Airlines, the couple can fly standby for 10 percent of ticket prices. “We go to Ireland three times a year and then continue on somewhere else. You name it, we’ve been everywhere.” While in Ireland, the couple goes to the horse races. (Mrs. Mulvey’s father was a stud manager — the queen used to send all of her horses to be foaled at his place.)
The couple hasn’t traveled for three years due to the pandemic, but they have a trip planned for the spring.
So what’s the secret to their nearly 57-year marriage? “For everything, we’re a team. I cook, he does the dishes. If I see the trash, I take it. If he sees it, he does. It doesn’t matter,” said Mrs. Mulvey.
“The first thing I do in the morning is make the bed. When I go to bed at night, there’s not a cup in the sink. That’s another thing. We never leave dishes,” said Mr. Mulvey.
THE MULVEYS at home.
“We’ve always been two peas in a pod, [but] you both need your own time, too. I am a morning person, Cyril likes to stay up and watch things,” said Mrs. Mulvey. But they both emphasized that they always like to know the other is there.
And the advice they’d give to young couples? “You have to give and take,” said Mrs. Mulvey. Mr. Mulvey added, “And I don’t contradict her. I don’t care about being right. I’m not going to be a know-it-all.”
Category: People