Douglas and Donna Sommerfeld are celebrating their 50th anniversary.
The Manteca couple wed Nov. 14, 1964, in the Lincoln Presbyterian Church in Stockton, later welcoming three sons into their new family, Douglas Jr., Stephen and Christopher. The Sommerfeld family has grown to include six grandchildren.
The couple has opted to have an intimate close-knit family dinner in Sacramento to mark their years together and share the remembrances of their love and lives together rather than having a larger event.
In 1979 they moved from Stockton to Acampo where they purchased a five acre parcel and together built their four bedroom farm home with the help of family and friends where they raised their family.
Neither Doug nor Donna had any experience in home construction before they set out on their construction project, designing and building their home to fit their needs. It was then that the couple began building their business, Switchgear Specialists, an electrical business they successfully ran together until their mutual retirement last year.
Doug and Donna continue to live in their Acampo home where they entertain, laugh with, and enjoy time with friends and family. They are presently in the process of selling their farm home, where they had also had livestock, with plans to move to the Manteca Woodbridge Del Webb community for those 55 and older.
Son Steve said his mother, at one point over the years, had a garden on a quarter acre of the Acampo property that she diligently cared for as part of her busy schedule.
Doug Sr. was born in Stockton and grew up in French Camp. He is a 1959 graduate of Manteca High School. Donna had moved from Pennsylvania to Stockton and the couple was introduced by Doug’s younger sister Beverly Sommerfeld.
Donna graduated from Lincoln High School in Stockton and later worked as a bookkeeper in the family business following their marriage. She also worked for other businesses in the Lodi area offering her bookkeeping services, their son Stephen said.
Doug spent four years in the U.S. Navy from 1959 through 1963 and served aboard an ammunition ship, the USS Rainier, as a radar operator before leaving the military.
