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. 

John P. - Texas

"It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are."  - E.E. Cummings

John is a highly intelligent man who has had great impact in this world. The fact that you are reading this on your computer right now testifies to that fact. Yet, his humility is nearly palpable. When he was little, he wanted to be a cowboy, just like almost all little boys at one point. 

Here he shares all about his childhood dream.

~ Claire

When I was growing up, we would go to the movies and westerns were quite popular then. We would see all the westerns. I thought that that was really a cool thing. Gene Autry was probably one of my favorite actors; he was really very popular in the movies. Of course, there were a lot of westerns on TV too. I liked them all, but we always watched Gunsmoke religiously on TV.

I liked playing cowboy and I had kind of wanted to be a veterinarian. I bought a Bantam rooster and hen from some boy at school. His parents had told him that he needed to get rid of them. I think I paid $0.50 for the rooster and hen together. We didn’t have a farm; we just lived on a little small lot. I kept them in our backyard and I don’t even think we had a pen for them. The funny part was that my mother would go out to hang the clothes up because she didn’t have a dryer. She would keep the clothes in a basket on the ground and that rooster would come up and take the clothes out of the basket and drag them around the yard and she would have to chase the rooster down.

My Bantam hen had laid some eggs once, and I was excited about that. I was in elementary school, in third or fourth grade or somewhere around there. I took packages of gum to school to hand them out like I was a father. Everybody thought that was real funny, but I wasn’t doing it to be funny. Those eggs never did hatch, though.

My friend, Gary, his dad had bought a farm. We would go down there lots of weekends and ride horses, fish in the river, trap raccoons, catch armadillos, hunt and things like that. We weren’t very good at hunting but we did it there, even though it wasn’t a very good place for hunting.

I had always wanted a horse of my own. Some of my friends had horses, and I finally ended up getting a horse too. My friends and I, we rode horses together and we went to horse competitions where they had pole races and barrel races and stuff like that in high school. I ended up raising a couple of colts from my horse.

My mother was a great seamstress. She made clothes for me and she really enjoyed that. And she made hats – back then everybody wore a lot of hats. We all thought we are a bunch of cowboys and a lot of people made blanket coats back then. They were white and had stripes on them. My mother ended up making me a beautiful blanket coat. I wore it and I enjoyed it.

Much later in my life, one of my good friends said, “Man, I envied that coat.” His mother couldn’t sew, so thought it was really special. And, I guess, it really was. 

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.

Myrt D - Texas

Bob and Myrt took their family of seven on an adventure of a lifetime to Thailand for many years of missionary work during the 1960s.  The memories there are truly prized possessions for them and now their grandchildren as well.  Their time spent there has connected families across both generations and continents.

 

~Claire

 

 

When we got ready to go to Thailand as missionaries, our friends Pat and Archie wanted to know how they could help us. So they got together and they put on a big $100 a plate dinner at the Hilton Hotel, the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Hollywood. And in order to go to the dinner you had to give $100; some gave more.

 

We left for Thailand on January 29, 1963 and got there on February 11. We were there for seven years. Eight years total, but we spent about nine or 10 months here in the United States on leave.

We had a lot of good times in Thailand. That was a great period of our lives. I stayed in town most of the time.  We had a nice house with a big tree in the yard.

We went to language school and it was tough. But then we moved up to Chang Mai and they had already established some churches up there. So, we visited them and Bob preached for them and helped them out. Then, we started a preacher training school there in Chang Mai. It worked pretty good. But it's tough working as a missionary in Thailand. You can't make any tracks too quickly.

 

We went to Phrao one time. Bob stopped our Volkswagen microbus about 2 miles from the church building in Phrao. I looked at my children and said, "Now, look, this is not the Waldorf Astoria. We are going to sleep on the floor, on mats, and it's not going to be real comfortable. But for one night you just got to be tough. They are going to serve you some food that you're probably not going to like, but eat it, don't complain." So they had one dish; it was little old larva and they made some kind of a dish out of it and put it on rice. I said, "You need to eat that." And I ate it too.

I told them to not complain. I told them, "I want you to be optimistic. God is going to work through us on this trip."

 

It was nice, though. We liked it. It was a great decision to go there. It was really a nice place to live. It was a good experience. And it was a good experience for the kids.

Bob D - Texas

Bob and Myrt's lifelong love started quite literally from love notes.  Letters written across the country began a marriage and family that took them on unimagined adventures all over the world.  Here's how it all began.

~Claire

I got up to Camp Shiloh and I was sitting and here comes Myrt in with her nice, little old black Ford coupe. She gets out and she was beautiful. I said, "Mankind!! Myrthalene!!” So, that's kind of the way that started.

 

Myrt and I didn't know each other very well, but we had known of each other for three years at Abilene Christian. When we were there at Camp Shiloh, I watched her around camp with the young people. She was in charge of the older girls and she was really a big sister. She had a great love for them and they loved her so much. So I could tell she was just a great person. Of course, she was Miss ACU and she was a Favorite and a Homecoming Queen nominee. I was impressed.

I was the chief counselor for the boys there at Camp Shiloh. Myrt’s chief counselor was a lady named Dorothy from El Paso. We met together to work out the schedule because she was in charge of the women and I was in charge of the men counselors.

I said, "Dorothy, what day is Myrt going to be off?" She said, "Well, I've got her off Thursday." I said, "That's the day I'm taking off."

So then I went to Myrt and I said, "Myrt, what day are you going to be off this week?" She said, "Thursday." I said, "That's the day I'm off! Let's do something together!"

Our first day off we got into her little black Ford about 5:00 AM. We ate pancakes right before we got into New York City. I had never been into New York City. It was my first time. I drove that little old black Ford through the Lincoln Tunnel, we parked it, and we ate breakfast. Then we walked around and we went to see Yankees play the Boston Red Sox. Ted Williams was the star, and Mickey Mantle. Then we got through and ate a nice little lunch. And then we went to a Broadway play, The King and I, the story of the king of Thailand. I got in there and it was so relaxing, and the music was so good.

So, for eight straight days off we kind of did something together. I don't know if she got tired of me or not. But anyway I said, "Myrt, we need to do something together again."

At the end of the camp, I had to do two weddings in Texas. So, I asked Myrt, "Myrt, could I ride with you all the way to Muskogee?" She said, "Sure! I'd love to!" So we rode all the way to Muskogee.

In Muskogee, her mother cooked a fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and biscuit dinner that I'll never forget. Towards the end of the meal, I said, "Myrt, would you take me to Highway 69 south of Muskogee?" She said, "What for?" I said, "I'm going to hitchhike to Port Arthur." So, she and her little brother, Jimmy, took me to Highway 69. I shook her hand and said, "Well, have a great year at Abilene Christian." And I shook her hand; I didn't even kiss her or anything. I said, "It's been a great summer." I hitchhiked all the way to Dallas and spent the night with my aunt and then went on to Port Arthur.

Later, I caught a ride back up to Dallas and went up to New York City to go to Camp Shiloh again. Well, when I got up there I was single and the prospects for a Christian girl up there were pitiful. And so on the way up from Dallas I called Myrt and, I mean, it was so good for me to talk to her. I said to her, "If I write you, will you write me?" She says, "Yeah, I'll do it." So when I got to New York, I wrote her and she wrote me.

Finally, one day I said to myself, "I really would like to marry her. But how can I do it? I'm making $200 a month and I can't get to Abilene." I went to St. Patrick's Cathedral, a famous Catholic church in New York City, and I got down to the front of the left side with a bunch of those women that were using the beads and I got down on my knees and I prayed the longest prayer I've ever prayed in my life. I said, "Lord, I want to marry her but how in the world can I?"

Finally, I decided I'd write her a letter, a proposal. I went back up and I wrote that letter. I said, "Dear Myrt, I know this is unusual, but I want you to be my wife. Would you marry me?"

I signed that thing, I licked it. I was upstairs on the fifth floor, I took it downstairs, I put the letter in the postal box and I flicked it down and I thought, "What have I done? She's going to think it's an April Fool’s joke or something. No one proposes by mail."

The next week I was just miserable. I couldn't get my mind on because I was just thinking I could just see her going down the hall at McKinsey thinking, "This guy! He thinks he can marry me! Ask me to marry him by mail!" It got bigger and bigger in my mind.

One day, old Bob (he preached one Sunday and I preached the next), he said, "Bob! You got a long-distance call from Abilene, Texas!" My heart started racing and I thought," This is it. My whole future."

I go downstairs, two flights of stairs, and I had to hold the phone while I got my breath. I said, "Hello?" She said, "Hello." I said, "Is that you, Myrt?" She said, "Yeah." It was quiet. I said, "Did you get my letter??" She said, "Yeah." It was still quiet. I said, "What do you think??" She said, "I think it's a good idea! I want to marry you!"

That was one of the best moments of my life! Because here I was, she was just exactly what I wanted.

 

To be truthful, our love for each other when we got married, it couldn't be real strong because we didn't know each other well. But, our commitment was strong. And every year, every year our love for each other has grown until right now, 60 years. Our love is stronger than ever. You can't give up on love. I love her now more than I've ever loved her. That's just the way it is.

Dennis D - Texas

“It is proof of high culture to say the greatest matters in the simplest way.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Dennis was a man of not too many words.  But when he spoke, it was with purpose and intent.  He was a loving husband, father, and grandfather, an intelligent man and a hard worker. 

Here is the story of how he and his wife, Mary, met and the story of their sweet - and kind of funny - wedding day.

~Claire 

My wife's name is Mary. I was in high school as a junior when she moved to our town as a sophomore in the middle of the school year. About three or four weeks later, we had our first date. We went by ourselves and saw a movie.
 

I guess what drew me to Mary, more than anything, was the love of Jesus that she had and how it was exhibited through her life. I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. One of the things that excited me about her was just the attention that she would give to others. She was willing to share the spotlight. 
 

At the time I was very seriously contemplating asking her to marry me, I went and ended up asking her father. He was the "loose cannon" because I wasn't quite sure just what kind of remarks I would get back from him. I talked to both him and her mother, and both of them were overjoyed. They said "Yeah, no problem."
 

My parents were the first ones I told. That came up as a topic of conversation on the way to church one Sunday morning. I ended up raising the question to my folks, "What would you think if I asked Mary to be my wife?" Mom, of course, turned around with tears in her eyes and said, "That would be great!" 
 

After Mary graduated from nurse's training, we got married. I had figured I'd ask her to marry me on New Year's Eve. She knew that I was going to ask her to marry me; the only thing she didn't know was when. So when it got to be about that time, we ended up sitting on the couch, I pulled the ring for my shirt pocket and I asked her if she would be my wife. She said "Yes!" I expected her to say yes, but I didn't expect her to say yes so quickly.
 

We got married September 2, 1966. It was a Saturday night and the sun was going down. That day was bright and shiny. When Mary walked down the aisle, that was probably the biggest thrill in my life - to watch her being escorted by her father down the aisle. 
 

 

I didn't know it at the time, but we weren't going to have her father for very long. And that was sad. As I look back on it, he ended up not only enriching my life and Mary's life but also our children’s lives. He was one of those people that never had a whole lot to say but when he did say it, it meant volumes. He was quite a man. Without him, I don't know where Mary would stand or even where Mary would land as far as being comfortable.
 

We had the wedding ceremony and had the reception. Unfortunately, I think it was my cousin Delmer who took my 57 Ford and he took red lipstick and put it on this white hood. I want to say it was nothing more than a heart with an arrow through it. On a window it's nice, but on metal it's not. I think it was Paul who ended up clueing me in on what was on that hood. And so, after the wedding ceremony, we ended up going up to Mary's uncle and aunt who lived nearby because I didn't want to get the car any hotter than it needed to be. We drove to the spot that they had for a garage and I grabbed some wax and waxed the daylights outta that hood. It finally got rid of the lipstick. 

 

I admired Mary's composure on our wedding day. She was the one that ended up keeping me "under control" instead of going for a stick for Delmer. 

 

Jeff B - Illinois

Arthur Rubinstein once said, "To be alive, to be able to see, to walk...it's all a miracle. I have adapted the technique of living life from miracle to miracle."

Jeff has witnessed many miracles. His children are three that have left him in wonder. As he's facing cancer, his desire is for each of his kids to know just how very, very proud he is of them all. And, that he wants grandchildren. Grand-girls, as matter of fact ; )

~Claire

The first time that my wife, Roberta, and I found out that we were going to be parents was Christmastime of 1982. We were so excited that we couldn't stand it. We wanted to have children and we were looking forward to it. A boy or a girl, it didn't matter. To have a boy and a girl is totally perfect, I think. So, we were excited. Very, very, very excited.

Back in those days, you didn't do any tests to find out it was a boy or a girl. So, you had to get two names ready and everything else.

Our son, Paul, was born first. We were so excited we couldn't stand it. There were lots of friends that we had that had babies at the same time. One, matter of fact, was a woman that was in the hospital when we went to the hospital. They had just had their son, Isaiah, and then Paul was born the next day. We went to visit her on our way to the Labor Department.

Our daughter, Susan, was born almost three years later, on Memorial Day. We had to get the doctor from a picnic, a Memorial Day picnic. He got there just in time, literally just put on his gown to catch Susan as she came out. We were very, very excited that she was a girl.

Our third child, Alexander, came around 10 years later. He was born in 1993 in Russia to Russian parents and ultimately ended up in an orphanage, put up for adoption by the government. So, in 1999, we set out on an adventure to adopt a boy from Russia. And here came Alex. He was 6 1/2 years old. We didn't want a baby because we were older; we were 46. Matter of fact, it was on Roberta’s 46th birthday when we got Alex.

To me, there is nothing like seeing God in the creation of a human being. That's what I thought of most on the days that each of our children were born. Immediately. And then with Alex, we were taking him out of an orphanage. We were delighted and in wonder with all three of them.

We had a blast with our Christmas traditions. A long time ago when Paul and Susan were very young, we started it. I would give everybody five dollars and we would have to buy presents for each other. You had to come in under your five dollars and whoever was closest to five dollars got an extra prize. It was always Susan. She could calculate it like she does now, with her shopping and blogging about it. Back then, she shopped and bragged about it but now she blogs about it.

Our family loved going to the beach together. If there was anything that we loved going to do, it was going to the water. We had two houseboat vacations that were a blast. And we had several vacations to beaches that were really, really a lot of fun that we either went to with another family or other friends. We had a blast planning it and we had a blast going on them, driving to them. It was a lot of fun.

Family devotionals were a blast here at our house when the kids were younger. We would act them out and do all kinds of crazy things like shaking the couch like it was a boat in the sea during a storm.

I love to be with my children. I love to go out to dinner or other places, shopping, with them. When we go downtown to see Paul and his wife, Sara, it's fun to just walk around, walk down the street, go to ice cream places or restaurants. It's fun to go visit Ben and Susan because they are in their element there. We love it. And Alex and I go on little trips; we've been on several little trips to go ATVing. We've gone four wheeling in Wisconsin. We've gone skiing several times. Alex, Paul and I have played paintball and we have a blast.

The happiest time for our family, for all of us, was when Paul got married and Susan got married. Those were happy times because we really like Sara and we really like Ben. Both weddings were fun and we had a blast together. I can't wait to go on a vacation all together.

I think what makes our family special is that we are together and that we like each other; I think that makes our family special. I love it.

I think that there is nothing that makes me happier than my children. I'm proud of them all the time, all of them. I don't just have a moment, I'm proud of them all the time. I really am. I'm proud that they love us. I'm proud of what they do. I'm proud of Paul and Susan for graduating from college.

I look forward to having grandchildren. I want grand-girls, just so you know.

I think the most important thing for my children to learn from me is faith in God. And, to take care of each other, to always pay attention and think about one another in our family.

What I want people to remember most about me is that I cared for them, that I really, truly, honestly care for people. When I'm gone, I just want people to feel that I really loved them. That's what I'd like.

I want Paul and Susan and Alex to care for one another, to care for other people, and to love God. "Love the Lord with all your heart, and mind, and soul, and strength…" and don't ever stop. Sing songs and be happy; be joyful. Live a joyful life.