A love story with a nice ring to it

The year was 1940. She was 15 years old and working as a carhop at Smith's Root Beer Stand on Third Street and Stewart Avenue.

He was four years her senior and drove a '39 Willys Overland, dark blue.

Every night after work Fred Kennedy picked Betty Hall up in that jeep. And in that jeep he would one day ask Betty to marry him.

"He gave me a ring on my 16th birthday, April 16, 1940, and my folks nearly had a fit," Betty Kennedy, now 75, said.

The ring that Fred Kennedy presented to Betty Hall was a $50 diamond ring purchased at M.J. Christensen Jewelers. At the time, Christensen was one of two jewelry stores in town and located inside a drugstore on Fremont Street.

"M.J. was more personable than the guy down the street," Fred Kennedy said as he remembers the day when he walked, a little jittery, into the store on Fremont.

"It was a lovely day in the spring," he said. "Fremont Street had a few people. Mr. Christensen was in the store. I told him what I wanted and if he treated me right I'd come back and buy the next one."

Two years later the couple went back to buy the wedding ring to match. The rings now sit tucked in the blue-velvet lining of their original double-heart white shaped flip-top box.

"We're still together, so they worked," Betty Kennedy said with a laugh last week as she opened the case showing the rings.

With their story, the rings and the original box, the Kennedys are the most likely candidates to win the M.J. Christensen Jewelers "Oldest Diamond Ring Contest" held to commemorate the store's 60th anniversary.

The store received nearly a dozen entries for the contest since announcing it last month. Older couples or their children or grandchildren brought in receipts, rings -- some in their original boxes -- and stories.

Those who hold the 10 oldest rings will receive a string of 60 pearls. The grand prize winner will receive a one-carat diamond.

Betty Kennedy had seen the advertisement. "I read it in the paper," she said. "I thought, 'Gee, who could be any closer?' "

The next likeliest candidates were a couple who said they were married on Feb. 7, 1942. They bought the ring the next day for $37.50.

"The hard part is the verification," spokesman Fred Lewis said. "The way (the family) does it is they track the story down until one says 'Yeah, I remember Dad talking about that.' "

"There are people who have lived here a long time and they all have a story to tell," Vern Christensen, jeweler and son of M.J. Christensen, said.

M.J. Christensen Jewelers' story also has deep roots in Las Vegas. Established in 1939, M.J. Christensen is the oldest jewelry store in town and possibly one of the most well-known names.

Marcus Joy Christensen, a jeweler and watch inspector for the Union Pacific Railroad, moved to Las Vegas to open his business in a small drugstore on Fremont Street.

At the time, a watch inspector was critical to the railroad. Trains coming from opposite directions needed to be sure that the other train had reached its sidings at the predetermined time so the trains wouldn't collide. Watches had to remain accurate within 30 seconds every two weeks or 30 days.

Using his savings and a few loans, Christensen bought his own store two years later at 225 Fremont St. Then in December 1947 Christensen opened a second store in Henderson. Over the next 16 years he would open three more stores in the valley.

He and his wife, Hazel, had four sons and two daughters, all who graduated from Las Vegas High School. Three of the sons were sent to watchmaker school in Peoria, Ill., the day after they graduated from high school. They returned to Las Vegas and became jewelers.

Christensen, who died in 1988, was not only a noted businessman. He entered state politics, serving eight years in the Nevada Assembly beginning in 1952. He served four years in the state Senate beginning in 1967 and served as president of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce in 1954.

Today Christensen stores are located on Sahara Avenue, at the Meadows Mall, The Forum Shops at Caesars and Galleria at Sunset. His sons Vern and Don Christensen are still active in the business as well as two grandsons and a granddaughter.

As new businesses move to the growing Las Vegas Valley and old businesses are torn down, M.J. Christensen Jewelers is one of the few that has remained a family-run business in Clark County -- which is why the oldest diamond ring contest is so fitting for its 60th anniversary.

And on a November afternoon, Fred and Betty Kennedy, the most likely to win the contest, retell their story at the shop on Sahara Avenue and reminisce about the good old days. During the '40s only about 10,000 people lived in Las Vegas, they say.

"Now we go out driving and I want to cry when I get home," Betty Kennedy said of the changes the valley's tremendous growth have brought about. "We never locked a door."

"It was great time," Fred added.

After working as a car hop, Betty, a student at Las Vegas High School, moved on to work at the El Portal movie theater on Fremont Street as an usher. Half of the shows were westerns, she said. She knew "Gone With the Wind" by heart.

It was also the only air-conditioned building in Nevada at the time, Fred Kennedy said.

Fred Kennedy worked for his father at L & K Markets, a grocery store on Second Street and Bridger Avenue. The building, built in 1936, is still there, he said. He was stock boy after school and began running the store when his father became ill.

Kennedy enlisted in the Navy shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Fred Kennedy and Betty Hall were married on Betty's 18th birthday, he in his sailor's uniform, at her parents' house.

"I quit working the day I got married," Betty Kennedy said. "That's just what you did. You were a housewife, a wife and then a mother."

After they were married, military duty caused them to travel around the country for three years before they settled in Las Vegas.

In the 58 years that they've been married Fred has given Betty four sets of rings. The second set came on their 14th wedding anniversary, the third on their 30th and the fourth on their 35th anniversary. The rings were all bought at M.J. Christensen Jewelers.

"We've had a wonderful life," she said. "We've been to Europe for three months at a time. We have four kids and 12 grandchildren."

The contest officially ends the end of this month, but the Christensens think they have the winner in the Kennedys. "I don't think anybody's going to beat that," Fred Lewis said.

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