Charles Whedbee was dressed in a different way from any one Ivalee Yancey experienced at any time seen the initially time she observed him.
“It was back when boys wore knickers and it was the to start with time I at any time saw a boy wearing the knickers,” suggests Ivalee, who was 5 or 6 decades previous and at a funeral with her mothers and fathers when she caught the 1st glimpse of Charles. “I just passed it off. I just by no means had noticed a young male dressed like that.”
Ivalee’s spouse and children was from the Mansfield spot but they had moved away and returned a number of situations by then. Charles’ family members, too, experienced still left and moved back, so they ended up primarily each new youngsters in faculty. Charles hadn’t recognized her at that somber celebration when they were small, but she caught his interest when he saw her on the faculty bus when they ended up a handful of many years more mature.
He began preserving a seat for her on the bus, so they could sit alongside one another and chat on the way to faculty.
“He lived two or three miles, as the crow flies, but he would come on Sunday afternoon to my house, on horseback. We did not have cars again then,” Ivalee suggests.
They took prolonged strolls alongside one another down the dirt street by her family’s property.
“We took a good deal of walks,” she says. “We would see the adult men out chopping wood for their fire or their wood stove to warmth their residences and we would just see persons out in their yards and we would say hello to them and go on.”
They had dated for a calendar year or two when Charles requested Ivalee’s father for her hand in relationship.
“My dad asked him if he imagined he could make a living for me,” she claims. “He reported, ‘Well, I imagine I can.’ He was continue to in high university then.”
His proposal to her was oblique.
“He just claimed, ‘How about we get married?'” she suggests.
They have been married Jan. 11, 1946.
They didn’t have an appointment and they experienced to wait around for the preacher to arrive down from exactly where he was roofing his residence and go shave just before he was all set to do the ceremony.
Ivalee experienced quit school by then, but Charles experienced attended classes as normal that working day, and she didn’t even know what time he would be at her dwelling to pick her up.
“They borrowed the agriculture teacher’s car or truck to appear get me,” Ivalee states. “They experienced to stroll out to his home and take care of a flat on it right before they could go away.”
Their 1st household as newlyweds was in a position on his loved ones farm, dubbed the Weaning Property.
“Which is wherever all the young children lived when they obtained married, just before they moved on,” Ivalee claims. “It had 3 rooms — a major kitchen area and a lesser dwelling place and a aspect area. There was a back porch and a entrance porch all across the entrance.”
They lived there for quite a few many years off and on, between relocations to Oklahoma and numerous Arkansas towns.
“Charles labored for a portray company, and then following we have been married he surrendered to preach and we moved to different spots so he could do that,” she says.
Ivalee remembers Charles telling her he required to preach as they walked property from the Dayton Baptist Church a person evening. They were being both equally Sunday Faculty instructors, he for a class of junior boys and she for a class of junior girls.
He was operating at an ice plant in Fort Smith at the time, commuting to and from every day with her father and bringing home 100 pounds of ice from operate, which authorized Ivalee the luxurious of storing milk and some of the other groceries she had to have home from the Dayton shop.
“We experienced an ice plant in Mansfield at that time, along the railroad tracks, and the ice man would run and you experienced a card that you would hang on your entrance monitor exhibiting how substantially you needed,” Ivalee claims.
They didn’t have electrical energy in the early years of their marriage. Ivalee did laundry on a rub board with drinking water she carried from the nicely. She sewed their dresses, and they grew most of their very own foodstuff.
“We did not know any unique back again then,” Charles claims. “Every person lived the very same way.”
Charles has led church buildings in Minor Rock and Fort Smith as very well as various other folks in between. Dayton Baptist Church made available him a purpose that permitted them to transfer again to the location exactly where they had developed up.
They dwell in a property they experienced built over many yrs on the Whedbee household farm, spending weekends and times off in it when they experienced a probability.
“We were happy to be again property,” she claims of the time they finally bought to settle in.
Charles and Ivalee have a few little ones — Tom Whedbee of Mansfield, Barry Whedbee of Liberty, Okla., and Pam Williams of Fort Smith. They also have six grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren.
The decades have absent by rapid, Ivalee claims.
“But if you read through at minimum 1 or two chapters of the Bible just about every working day — 1 from the Aged Testament and just one from the New Testomony – that can help you together the way,” she suggests.
If you have an intriguing how-we-satisfied story or if you know an individual who does, you should contact (501) 425-7228 or e-mail:
The initial time I saw my long term spouse:
She claims: “He was wearing knickers.”
He claims: “We were going to faculty and I assumed she was a great-on the lookout female. She experienced lengthy darkish hair. I made the decision I wished to go out with her.”
On our marriage working day:
She suggests: “I packed my matters and got completely ready and waited for him and Truman to appear and get me.”
He suggests: “I under no circumstances did make extensive-array designs, so when we knew we desired to get married, I claimed, ‘Well, we’ll just make a decision on a day,’ and we married on my birthday.”
My advice for a long delighted
relationship:
She suggests: “Put every single other first.”
He says: “The best beginning was that we made a decision that we desired the Lord in our life and in our marriage and we’ve followed him all these a long time.”