George F. Nolan

George Nolan was born on December 25, 1931 in Ruthven, Iowa to Fern and Lyle Nolan, He had three siblings: Mary Lou, Bill, and John. His family ran the only movie theatre in town. After the theater burned down when he was 17, the family moved to Des Moines, Iowa. He worked at Meredith Publishing after high school. He met his future wife Donna and they married in 1952. They moved to Santa Monica in the great postwar migration of Iowans to southern California, and had three children: Susan, Mary (Mike) and Bob (Joan), and one grandchild: Aaron.

George joined the Navy Reserve, earned an AA in electrical engineering and learned vacuum tube theory just as the transistor was invented. He started his career at Litton Industries. After a number of years, he left Litton and bought Aero Services and Supply, an airplane parts business at the Long Beach airport where he spent many happy hours. After Donna's passing from cancer in 1980, George sold Aero Services and worked at Teledyne, retiring in 1992 at age 61.

A mutual friend reintroduced him to Darlene, whom he had known as a young man before they both married other people. George and Darlene were wed in 1981, and he gained two stepchildren: Roger and Anne (Richard), and eventually 6 step grandchildren: Neil, Kelly, Jaime, Angie, Ashley and Anna, all of whom he embraced as family.

George was always an early adopter of new technology, from installing rooftop TV antennae in the 1940's to using IBM PC's at work and playing Mattel Intellivision games at home in the early 1980's. Playstations, laptops, smartphones and Kindle e-readers followed. He also loved to make and fix things. In retirement, he became "the handyman to the stars," building all sorts of projects for the neighbors. He was proud to be the last person who mowed his own lawn in the Santa Monica neighborhood. He remained active into his late eighties and regularly walked five miles a day.