She remembered his fashion at their first meeting
Charles Whedbee was dressed in another way from anyone Ivalee Yancey experienced at any time found the first time she saw him.
“It was back when boys wore knickers and it was the initial time I at any time noticed a boy donning the knickers,” claims Ivalee, who was 5 or 6 yrs outdated and at a funeral with her dad and mom when she caught the initially glimpse of Charles. “I just passed it off. I just hardly ever had viewed a youthful male dressed like that.”
Ivalee’s household was from the Mansfield place but they experienced moved absent and returned a several situations by then. Charles’ spouse and children, as well, experienced left and moved again, so they have been essentially equally new youngsters in college. Charles hadn’t discovered her at that somber party when they ended up tiny, but she caught his interest when he saw her on the school bus when they were a couple several years older.
He started out preserving a seat for her on the bus, so they could sit collectively and converse on the way to faculty.
“He lived two or 3 miles, as the crow flies, but he would arrive on Sunday afternoon to my property, on horseback. We didn’t have automobiles back again then,” Ivalee claims.
They took lengthy strolls alongside one another down the dust street by her family’s dwelling.
“We took a large amount of walks,” she says. “We would see the adult men out chopping wood for their hearth or their wooden stove to heat their homes and we would just see men and women out in their yards and we would say howdy to them and go on.”
They had dated for a yr or two when Charles asked Ivalee’s father for her hand in marriage.
“My father asked him if he considered he could make a dwelling for me,” she suggests. “He claimed, ‘Well, I believe I can.’ He was still in significant faculty then.”
His proposal to her was indirect.
“He just said, ‘How about we get married?'” she states.
They ended up married Jan. 11, 1946.
They failed to have an appointment and they had to wait for the preacher to occur down from in which he was roofing his residence and go shave ahead of he was completely ready to do the ceremony.
Ivalee experienced quit school by then, but Charles had attended classes as typical that day, and she did not even know what time he would be at her household to decide on her up.
“They borrowed the agriculture teacher’s auto to appear get me,” Ivalee suggests. “They had to wander out to his property and take care of a flat on it ahead of they could go away.”
Their first home as newlyweds was in a put on his spouse and children farm, dubbed the Weaning Dwelling.
“Which is exactly where all the youngsters lived when they received married, ahead of they moved on,” Ivalee claims. “It had 3 rooms — a major kitchen area and a smaller living space and a aspect place. There was a back porch and a entrance porch all throughout the entrance.”
They lived there for various a long time off and on, in between relocations to Oklahoma and various Arkansas towns.
“Charles worked for a painting business, and then right after we were being married he surrendered to preach and we moved to unique areas so he could do that,” she says.
Ivalee remembers Charles telling her he wished to preach as they walked dwelling from the Dayton Baptist Church just one night. They were each Sunday College lecturers, he for a course of junior boys and she for a course of junior women.
He was performing at an ice plant in Fort Smith at the time, commuting to and from every day with her father and bringing dwelling 100 lbs . of ice from perform, which allowed Ivalee the luxury of storing milk and some of the other groceries she experienced to carry dwelling from the Dayton keep.
“We experienced an ice plant in Mansfield at that time, along the railroad tracks, and the ice male would operate and you had a card that you would dangle on your front screen demonstrating how a lot you desired,” Ivalee claims.
They failed to have energy in the early years of their relationship. Ivalee did laundry on a rub board with h2o she carried from the perfectly. She sewed their clothes, and they grew most of their have foods.
“We failed to know any unique back then,” Charles says. “Every person lived the similar way.”
Charles has led church buildings in Minimal Rock and Fort Smith as properly as several other individuals in amongst. Dayton Baptist Church provided him a role that permitted them to move again to the place exactly where they had developed up.
They are living in a home they experienced developed over various many years on the Whedbee relatives farm, investing weekends and times off in it when they had a likelihood.
“We were happy to be again property,” she suggests of the time they at last received to settle in.
Charles and Ivalee have a few children — Tom Whedbee of Mansfield, Barry Whedbee of Liberty, Okla., and Pam Williams of Fort Smith. They also have 6 grandchildren and 20 wonderful-grandchildren.
The many years have long gone by speedy, Ivalee says.
“But if you go through at minimum one or two chapters of the Bible each and every working day — one particular from the Outdated Testomony and 1 from the New Testomony – that can help you alongside the way,” she states.
If you have an interesting how-we-satisfied story or if you know a person who does, make sure you phone (501) 425-7228 or email:
The first time I noticed my foreseeable future wife or husband:
She says: “He was carrying knickers.”
He suggests: “We had been likely to school and I believed she was a very good-seeking female. She had very long dim hair. I decided I required to go out with her.”
On our marriage ceremony working day:
She suggests: “I packed my issues and obtained prepared and waited for him and Truman to arrive and get me.”
He suggests: “I never did make lengthy-range strategies, so when we realized we wanted to get married, I reported, ‘Well, we’ll just decide on a working day,’ and we married on my birthday.”
My tips for a extensive joyful
relationship:
She states: “Put each and every other initially.”
He says: “The most effective starting was that we decided that we preferred the Lord in our life and in our relationship and we have adopted him all these years.”