RIGHT TIME RIGHT PLACE

Giggling stowaway became partner in life's journey

Lucy and Tommy Owen around the time of their wedding, July 5, 1962
Lucy and Tommy Owen around the time of their wedding, July 5, 1962

At one time, Tommy Owen refused to allow Lucy Jane Johnson in his car. Lucy was 12 when she first spied Tommy, a frequent visitor at her friend Patsy's house.

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“He was absolutely adorable,” says Lucy Owen, recalling her decision to go out with Tommy the first time. “He had this dark hair and these eyelashes that were longer than you can imagine. And he wasn’t a bad boy, really, but he had this attitude. I was with Tommy from then on.”

Patsy lived on Battery Street in Little Rock, not far from Lucy's house on Schiller Street, and Tommy and her older brother Mike were chums. Spying was just something the girls did when Mike had company. They thought his friends were cute, and it gave them something to talk about, and perhaps some cues on how older teenagers behaved.

The first time I saw my spouse:

She says: “I got extra prissy because I was impressed by him. I’m sure I was batting my eyes and being a little femme fatale.”

He says: “Wow. This was when I saw her as a candidate to go out with. She was blond, had a good body, nice legs, she was cute and she had a good personality.”

On our wedding day:

She says: “I was nervous, nervous, nervous.”

He says: “I was trying to figure out how to get her out of the house without her mom figuring out where we were going.”

My advice for a long happy marriage is:

She says: “Don’t stay angry long. If you need to get something out, do that and get it resolved. Don’t hold grudges. Be kind. And be a good cook because the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”

He says: “Have patience and tolerance. Both sides have to give equally.”

"Her and her friend both were little brats," says Tommy. "They would pester us when we were at my friend's house. They were always hanging around."

Patsy and Lucy once even climbed into the back seat of Tommy's '58 Chevy and waited for the boys to head out for the evening.

"We were getting ready to pull out of the driveway and we heard some giggling and looked back there and saw them laying on the floor," says Tommy.

He couldn't get those girls out of there fast enough, which is funny to think about, now.

But Tommy didn't remember that incident -- or Lucy -- a few years later when he went to Lucy's house with another friend, a guy who had gone out with her a couple of times and just wanted to show her off to his buddy. Lucy looked like a different girl. She was 15 by then, after all, a sophomore at Central High School.

It was 1960, and Lucy was in her front yard practicing for cheerleader tryouts in short shorts when they drove up. Tommy and his friend wandered up to the front porch to talk for a bit.

He drove back to Lucy's house alone a few days later, and once again found her in her front yard, this time practicing for cheerleader tryouts with a few of her friends. He got out and chatted with them, and before he left he asked Lucy for a date to the movies.

She instantly forgave him for his earlier shunning. How could she not?

"He was absolutely adorable. He had this dark hair and these eyelashes that were longer than you can imagine," she says. "And he wasn't a bad boy, really, but he had this attitude. I was with Tommy from then on."

His friend wasn't serious about her and didn't let on if he minded their dating, says Tommy, who took Lucy to his senior prom at Hall High School later that year.

After graduation he left for the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. They intended to stay together long-distance, writing to each other and going out on weekends when he came home.

Tommy wasn't in Fayetteville long, though. He missed her and decided to come back home after just a few weeks.

"That had everything to do with it, actually," he says.

He enrolled in classes at Little Rock University (now the University of Arkansas at Little Rock) and when summer rolled around he went back to work for the state Department of Public Welfare (now the Department of Human Services) just like he had the previous summer.

That's when, before Lucy's senior year, they decided it was time to start their life together.

"We were going to wait until after I graduated from high school but we decided we just couldn't wait," says Lucy.

They knew Lucy's mother wouldn't approve. So, when Lucy put on a white linen dress with pink trim and got in the car with Tommy in the late afternoon of July 5, 1962, they let her mother believe that they were going out for a nice dinner.

They had stashed a small overnight bag packed with Lucy's things in the trunk before they headed off to exchange their vows in the pastor's study at Second Baptist Church in downtown Little Rock.

"I nervously giggled when Tommy was saying his vows, and then when I was saying mine I was sobbing and I could barely talk," says Lucy.

The fellow who went out with Lucy and then introduced her to Tommy was a witness at the wedding. He was a married man by then, and he and his wife often double-dated with the newlyweds.

Tommy and Lucy stopped for dinner at a little diner in Hot Springs and then grabbed some champagne before checking into their hotel -- and before Tommy had to make the phone calls to share the nuptial news with their families.

Tommy and Lucy moved from Little Rock to Fort Smith recently. They have two children, Melanie Webre of Fort Smith and Tommy "L.T." Owen of Little Rock. They also have four grandchildren.

Lucy's 12-year-old self couldn't have imagined things turning out better than they have.

"I think we appreciate each other more and more as time goes on," she says. "There wasn't anything I could have done that would have been any better."

If you have an interesting how-we-met story or if you know someone who does, please call (501) 378-3496 or email:

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High Profile on 12/20/2015

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