GOOD OLD DAYS: Longevity through love and dancing

One of Jeane Moritz’s biggest passions when she was a newlywed in the early 1930s was dancing.

“We went to dance every Saturday night — or to any other dance that we heard about,” she said.

Her daughter-in-law, Eileen Moritz, thinks this may have contributed to her incredible longevity; at 103, Jeane Moritz is still going strong.

Born in 1905, less than a month after Einstein published his special theory of relativity, Moritz takes only one prescription and still makes her bed and joins the family for meals.

Moritz grew up in Santa Ana; her father drilled for water wells, and the family also lived for a while on a Hopi reservation in Arizona.

Following her 1929 wedding, Jeane Moritz and her husband typically went up the coast to the larger dance floors on their frequent nights out.

“Every time they could get a night off, they would go,” Eileen Moritz said.

“You could find good dancing in Long Beach,” Jeane Moritz said. “That was a popular place to go.”

She lives in the same 1920s Costa Mesa house she and her husband inhabited for decades.

“We lived in Riverside, then we came down here,” she said.

She especially enjoyed the proximity to the bus line, because she never learned to drive, and went to the beach often with her family.

Eileen was a neighborhood girl who attracted the attention of the Moritz’s son, Rod.

Her brothers punned that Rod’s parents were Ozzie and Harriet.

“They were the ideal family,” Eileen Moritz said.

They later helped make their son’s 1960 Newport Beach bayfront wedding possible.

Eileen Moritz said they immediately made her feel like their own daughter.

Jeane’s husband died in 1980.

“Mother just continued to go on after Dad died,” Eileen Moritz said. “She and Dad had a very, very happy life together. She was the love of his life, and he was the love of her life.”

Jeane Moritz now shares her 23rd Street home with two other generations of her family; it’s one of only a handful on her block that hasn’t been torn down to make way for McMansions and multi-family dwellings.

The warm home is filled with memories from the family brass foundry — an eagle hangs, wings outstretched, in one corner, and a stag leaps over the living room fireplace.

Jeane’s days are filled with loving family close at hand; her many grandchildren and great-grandchildren all adore her and treat her like a queen.

“There’s not a mean bone in her body,” Eileen Moritz said. “She’s always been a sweet, sweet person, and everyone who knows her loves her.”

“I’m very happy,” Jeane Moritz said.

CANDICE BAKER can be reached at (949) 494-5480 or at [email protected].