In the 1950s, there were no dating apps.

There was no Facebook or Instagram to collect a little extra intel. There was no way to Google someone’s criminal background.

Ninety-three-year-old Edward Trabin from Palos Verdes recently reached out to the Los Angeles Times to share the tale of the best blind date of his life — back in 1951. Ahead of their 70th anniversary, Edward and his wife, Toby, joined host Lisa McRee on “LA Times Today” to explain their leap of faith.

Edward and Toby Trabin met in December 1951, were engaged four weeks later and eloped soon after. When Edward saw an article in the LA Times about dating, he reached out to the paper with his own story.

"I sent in an article that I had titled ‘The Blind Date,’ and it obviously intrigued the editor because I ended up getting an email from her," said Edward. "She was intrigued with the story and indicated to me that there might be some interest in publishing it, and asked me for a little bit more information than what I put in when I first sent in the story via email."

The publication was a surprise for Toby. When they returned from a trip to Palm Springs, Edward showed his wife the story he’d written about their whirlwind romance. His article was published as part of the LA Affairs section of the paper. In it, he details how his love story with Toby began.  

“I ran into an old fraternity brother of mine at a UCLA basketball game," Edward said. "We were chatting, and I said something about to be nice to meet somebody new. He said he had a cousin who had recently come out from Syracuse, who probably didn’t know anybody and was probably not dating. But nothing happened. And finally, a couple weeks later, when I saw him at a basketball game, I said to him, ‘If I wait for you, [I] will never meet the lady.’ Then he got me her number. I called Toby, and she had no idea who I was! I had to explain to her that her cousin had given me her phone number. I asked her on Friday night, Dec. 30, and that’s how it started."

Toby said she was new in town, and the only way to meet anyone was through a blind date, so she thought she’d give it a try. The date went very well, and they talked well into the night.

“We were just comfortable with each other. We had a lot to share. We had to find out about each other," Toby recalled. "I came from 3,000 miles away. And he grew up in California. It was very different growing up here and in the East, and we just hit it off.”

After their first date, Edward’s sister-in-law advised him to take it slow with Toby. Four weeks later, they were engaged. Two weeks after that, they eloped to Mexico.

“The Korean War was going on then. I didn’t want him to be drafted, and he could have been. So we thought we would get married since they weren’t taking getting married at that time,” Toby said.

After their wedding, the couple moved to the East Coast so Edward could attend law school. It was a major change from Southern California, where they met.

"[Edward] got accepted at Harvard," Toby said. "So we moved from [California] to Boston to Cambridge. And to him, that was a real shock. He grew up in Southern California, where everything was bright and clean and sunny, and then we went to good old Cambridge, which was old and rickety. And I rented an apartment that was at street level, and he’d never seen anything like that. In front of the bedroom window was a bus stop. We saw everybody’s legs from the window if we didn’t keep the blinds down. It was really three years of law school, one year of him being a teaching fellow with four years in Boston that were really wonderful in retrospect, but at the time, they were very difficult."

Fast-forward about 70 years, and the couple has three children, two grandchildren and one great-grandchild. They shared advice for people who are searching for their own love story.

“I think you need to be open. Everybody is different, and everybody looks at life differently. I think having something neutral, whether it’s the same religion or same background, something that will give you an idea of what the person is like. You’re going to compromise,” Toby said.

“I agree with Toby. Religion is either important or unimportant in your mind. It doesn’t hurt to have the same political views and views on raising the children and how we wanted to live. We’re really all the same. And I think if you don’t have that, then you better be prepared for an awful lot of compromise at all,” Edward added. “I think there’s something else on, at least in our marriage, and that’s so sharing things that have to be done. I think that’s important in a relationship.”

Edward and Toby Trabin celebrate 70 years of marriage this month.

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