Carol D. - Texas

“Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.”  

― Louis de Bernières, Corelli's Mandolin

Below you will find an excerpt from Carol's Interview.  She and her husband John just celebrated 50 years of marriage. They have so much to look back on and cherish, but they are looking forward to much more to come.

~ Claire

John and I had known of each other since I was six or seven years old because my mother took me to church where John and his family attended. His parents used to come by and pick my mother and me and some of my other siblings up to take us to church. John was our song leader, so I saw him there every week. I knew John was a really nice person.

The year I turned 14, John gave me my first birthday present from him. It was a sweater, a gold mohair sweater that itched me to death. But I hung onto it for a long time.

John and I went to the movies together a lot. We came to Dallas and saw Ben Hur; that was my first time to ever go out of our little community on a date. I thought it was amazing and fun. We still love watching movies together.

We got engaged on December 22. John came over to my house and had already talked to my dad. He had wrapped my ring and put it under the tree. He gave it to me and I opened it up. Then, he got it and put it on my finger and asked me to marry him.

We found out that we were expecting our first child in 1968. We had been married for almost six years by then and I had been wanting a baby ever since the first year we had been married. Every month I would think, “Oh, I hope I’m pregnant!”

The day that our first child was born was a very happy day for us. I loved life with a baby. Our first year with Amy was a nice, wonderful year for us.

I wanted another baby because I didn’t want Amy to grow up without a sibling. We found out we were expecting another child in August, right around our ninth anniversary.

We had another daughter, and we named her Lori. We loved both of our girls dearly. My mother loved being a grandmother, too. She loved little girls, particularly, because she liked to sew for them. She made me beautiful clothes, and she made Amy and Lori beautiful clothes.

John is a real good dad. He loves Amy and Lori. He is a hands-on dad, especially when the girls were little. He changed diapers and got up in the middle of the night with them to feed them. I would lay the girls’ clothes out on Sunday and he would get them dressed.

I think both of the girls have evolved into beautiful young women from the inside out. They have some strong convictions that I hope we instilled in them as children. They are very caring and very generous. We are a very close family.

I believe that God brought us through the trials that we’ve had along the way. Every family has trials, and I believe our strong faith has helped us cope with that and get through those difficulties. They say that marriage is 50/50, but I think it’s more 100/100. Each person has to give 100%. You’ve got to forgive, and you’ve got to learn to say, “Please forgive me.” I think that’s something that we should instill in our children at a very early age, to say, “Please forgive me.” Those three words are very important.

John D. - Texas

John and his wife are celebrating 50 years of marriage this month. They have journeyed along a lifelong adventure together that has not only taken them across the country and back again, but has built a family legacy too, filling their hearts beyond what they ever imagined possible. 

~ Claire

I was the congregational song leader at our church and I had a good eye on the young women that were coming into the sanctuary. I spotted this beautiful brown-haired, brown-eyed gal and kept close eyes on her for some time.

Carol and I had a great three years of courtship. Our relationship just kind of progressed slowly over time. She was young, and I was in school and working full-time. Carol was such a loving girl. She’s easy to know, very warm with people. And her family knowing my family - that certainly helped a lot.

Later on, Carol and I looked for engagement rings together. There was a jeweler there in town that had a lot of confidence in me. He let me take diamond rings home to show Carol and let her pick what she wanted. I bought her a center-cut diamond solitaire. It was an expensive item for me back then, but she loved it. The people in town really got a big charge out of that ring because she was still in high school. Some of the other girls there noticed her ring and some of the fellas too!

Carol and I were married on August 16, 1963. We had a beautiful wedding. I felt wonderful that day; it was a wonderful experience.

Now we’ve got four little grandchildren, two from each of our daughters. We are a blessed family. Carol has been my lifetime partner in everything. She’s really been a blessing to me. She’s always been right at my side helping me. She’s such a strong influence upon our children, a caring mother, devoted to me and our children. It’s been a wonderful life with her. She’s always had a steadfast love. She’s always been faithful and had integrity of life. She’s had a real joy for living and caring for our family unit. It’s been so meaningful to me. She looks to others to see how she can care for them – it’s a marvelous thing today. It’s not a selfish love.

Brenda P. - Texas

Brenda is fun. And funny, and sweet, and loving.  It truly was a joy for me to sit down with her and learn so much from her. She and David have known each other for just about their whole lives. They recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary with all of their family and friends. And it really, truly, was a celebration.

~ Claire

I went out with David for two or three months when I was in the 10^th grade, so I was very young. I just liked him so much. I liked David as a person. But I think he tried to avoid me some in school. I was more outgoing than he was, so I’m sure I made him very uncomfortable.

Then, when we were out of school, David called me one summer. I hadn’t heard from him in years, probably three years. He called and asked me if I would go to the lake with him. He was real big into the lake; he loved water and stuff like that. Well, I’m not big on that stuff; I’m a little bit afraid of it. But I wanted to go with him, so I said yes. Well, I had no idea we were going to get out on a sailboat! And, you know, sailboats are scary as the Dickens!! We would sit on the side of the boat because it was so little. We had to run back and forth so the boat wouldn’t tip over. I was so sick! I was worried crazy that I would fall over and he didn’t even have me a lifejacket! He would pitch me a cushion and said, “Here. Use this if you need it.” I couldn’t have held onto that if I wanted to! When I went home to the dorm that night, I fell out of my bed because I was having nightmares so bad. That’s how scary that was for me. I’ll never forget that. I never want to ride in another sailboat ever! I wouldn’t do it again for a million dollars.

David and I dated, and then he would wait several weeks and then he would call me again. He was never consistent. I was having a really good time in college. I liked other boys but I still liked David. He would call me, but not all the time. 

I was living with my sister and brother-in-law and they were real fond of David – my whole family was. They had known David because we had gone together a lot. David called one night and my sister said to him, “Why don’t you come over here and eat supper with us?” He said okay. Well, I had a date that night with another boy. We sat down and ate, and then I had to tell him that I had another date and I was leaving. He and my brother-in-law played chess and were sitting at the dining room table when this other boy named David B. came and knocked on the door to get me. This other boy saw David sitting there and they knew each other from college. David B. asked me, “Who is that fella? Haven’t I seen him before?” I said, “Well, he’s just a friend of the family.” Because he was.

The very next morning, David asked me if I would go to church with him and I said yes. He came to pick me up and we were driving down the street. David B. pulled up right beside us! And I was sitting right up next to David in the front because of where the gearshift was. David B. saw us and I had just told him that David was just a friend of the family. I thought, “Well, that blows that. I’m getting myself in a big mess with all these boys.”

David popped up every once in a while in my life, but not regularly. So I told him one night, “I want to tell you something. We’ve been dating a long time. I want you to either make up your mind or just leave. I don’t want this going on back and forth because I’m having a lot of fun down here and I’m messing myself up.” He understood that. He had never told me before that he loved me. He didn’t have a line – he never was the kind that would do that.

But about two weeks later, he told me that he loved me and he asked me that very same day to marry him. I really was so glad. I had a date with another boy and I had to call him to tell him I couldn’t go because I had gotten engaged.

People have asked me what really drew me to David, and I don’t really know. I just knew him and I didn’t think anything about it. He was always so mannerly. I knew he was a real hard worker and a really good Christian fella. I just admired him. That sounds funny for somebody our age back then, but I could see those traits in him. I dated other boys and had a lot of dates but they just didn’t do for me.

We got engaged in December, right before Christmas. And we were married on June 1. We just celebrated our 50^th wedding anniversary.

The births of our children were very happy times for us. All of our children are good moral people. I know my mother would be proud of them because that was her big thing to stress. I’ve gotten that from her. Other happy times were seeing them married, seeing them with a good companion. We are very lucky about their companions. They have great husbands and a wife. I just don’t know how we could have been so lucky that we have that. And we have eight healthy grandchildren.

Without a doubt, the saddest time in my life was when David was diagnosed with cancer. That’s been real hard for us. He had surgery two months after he was diagnosed and we thought everything was fine. But six months later, the cancer came back. It has hung over our head for over eleven years now. It’s without a doubt the hardest thing we’ve ever had to face. It’s hard for me because I worry about what’s going to happen to him or about being by myself. David is such a good companion for me; he’s a wonderful husband.

Thankfully, he feels good and we’re blessed with that. Living with David’s cancer for all this time really has been draining but it has, in some respects, brought us closer together. We know that every day with each other is just really a gift. We have decided with this, that we are just going to live every day and try to live as good as we can. We’re going to enjoy the days we have because nobody really knows what they have ahead of them. Without health, you don’t have much and that’s the saddest thing. We have lots of material things but we don’t have good health for David. I would trade it all in a day for good health for him. To me, health is just so important and money can’t buy it. We’re older, but you don’t expect that; you’re never ready for it. I would never want to lose him.

I think in order to have a successful marriage you need to start out loving that person. But your love does grow over time. My mother told me that. She said, “You think you love him now…you can’t imagine how much you’re going to love him later.”

I also think that in order for your marriage to be successful you have to work through your problems and be open with each other. We always knew that we had to make this marriage work. We entered into it knowing it was going to be a lifetime-thing. 

Gladys H. - Maryland

"It is difficult to know at what moment love begins; it is less difficult to know that it has begun." 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Gladys and Richard were married for 45 years. This is a special story from the beginning of what would become a legacy. It sings of a time when simplicity was beautiful and profound. 

~ Claire

My husband’s name is Richard. We met at West Virginia University. We were both members of the swimming honorary and that’s where we got acquainted. We met in about 1950 or 51 and we dated about a year and a half, maybe a little less than that.

I wasn’t a sorority girl.  When I went off to college, I didn’t really know what rush week was or what it was all about because I had started during the second semester.

But Richard was in a fraternity, Phi Delta Theta, and he gave me his fraternity pin the year before we were married. If you got pinned, that was practically being engaged. That was probably the most special thing, the pinning. It was more special than my engagement ring. It’s a beautiful pin, probably the most beautiful fraternity pin there is. It’s got a shield and sword, and on some of them, the sword could be removed from the shield. His initials were engraved on the back of it with the bond number.

There was a serenade that night. The fraternity brothers came over to my dorm room and stood under my window with Richard standing in front of them. I knew they were coming. It was very exciting and all my friends were there in the room or in the hall or maybe in the rooms next to my dormitory room. In our dormitory, they had terraces up above, and some of my friends were probably standing up in the terraces looking down over it all. I had a candle in the window and came and stood there.

Richard said a few words before they started singing. And then, they would serenade. It was really very impressive. They dressed up nicely too. They all wore a white shirt and a tie, and back then the young men wore blazers.

I was very elated and a little emotional about it.

We were married on August 30^th, 1952. And Richard was down there waiting for me at the front of the altar with a big smile on his face. His smile was always very special.

We were married for 45 years. I think the key to a successful marriage is to listen to one another and express your love for each other every day. Do whatever you can do to encourage each other; lift each other up.

I still have that pin that Richard gave me on that special day.