Walter Daves was working full time at AP&L in 1949 but also helping his brother, George, on a milk route when he met his maiden, a high school senior named Mary Harper. Of course, neither of them thought so that first meeting or he wouldn't have asked for another girl's phone number.
Mary worked part time as a bookkeeper at Pritchett Dairy in Malvern. When the boys made their stop there, they wandered into the office to see if Mary would give them the phone number of a girl she knew from high school.
The first time I saw my spouse:
She says: “I thought he didn’t mind to work, lifting those cases of heavy milk bottles, because he came to help his brother.”
He says: “She was sitting behind a desk in an office.”
On our wedding day:
She says: “I wore a navy blue suit and I had a hat with a little veil on it with a bow in the back. Of course, he wore his Army uniform. My mother and father went with us and his sister from Hot Springs went with us, and my girlfriend was up there to stand up with us.”
He says: “I had to meet the general at the airport. A week later we had to go back to the airport and see him off.”
My advice for a long marriage:
She says: “You just have to love each other and stick by each other, regardless.”
He says: “Stay busy, say ‘Yes, ma’am,’ and stay out of the way.”
This girl had seen Walter perform in his sister-in-law's musical productions in Malvern, and she'd made it plain to people near Walter she had eyes for him. What she didn't have is a phone number to offer and, too bad, that left the door open for Mary. (Enter, stage right.)
Mary dutifully gave them the phone number, but the girl didn't answer the phone, and by then, Walter had eyes for Mary.
"His older brother" -- George -- "was married and had a little boy, but they wanted to know if I would go with them, kind of a double-date, and come to Hot Springs for a movie,'' Mary says. "I said, well, yeah, I would do that."
Walter lived in Hot Springs nearer his job at AP&L (now known as Entergy Arkansas), while Mary was a senior at Malvern High School. But Walter was in Malvern often, visiting his brother and participating in his sister-in-law's musicals, and he and Mary went on several more double dates.
"I spent the next couple of years running to Malvern and back and running the wheels off a '41 Plymouth," Walter says.
In November 1950, Walter went ring shopping.
"In Malvern at that time, between Highway 7 and Highway 67, which is the main drag, I pulled up to the stoplight," says Walter, who vividly remembers the horns honking as people tried to get him to move out of the way. "The light changed and I pulled right out into the intersection and stopped. I handed her a ring and said, 'You want to get married?' She said, 'Yes. Now get out of the middle of the street, fool.'"
They set March 31 as their wedding date, but Walter was drafted into the Army in January 1951, and soon thereafter found himself at Fort Sill near Lawton, Okla. Walter planned to drive the seven hours back to Hot Springs in time to marry that evening. Then he learned a general was flying in from Denmark to visit the base, and Walter was ordered to go pick him up at the airport. There was a parade, an inspection and other activities, and he was not allowed to leave until all of that was done.
He called to let Mary know he would be there, but he would be late.
"I called the minister, who was a friend of my family's, and told him [we] would just come the next day but he said, 'No, y'all just come on whenever he gets back,'" Mary says.
It was 1:15 a.m. when they got to the minister's house, woke him up and exchanged their vows. The minister checked his watch as he looked at their license and asked if they would like him to date it March 31, 1951, their intended wedding date, or April 1, 1951, the actual date.
"My husband is a jokester anyway, and he said, 'Well, if it's April the first, date 'em April the first. April Fools' Day.' But it's lasted."
The next morning, they climbed into the pickup truck he had traded his car for, with the back loaded with Mary's belongings, along with Walter's father and brother, and drove to Lawton. "She rode in my lap all the way out there. So her honeymoon was riding in a pickup truck," Walter says. "Two fools got together on April Fools' Day."
She moved with him from Fort Sill to Fort Riley, Kan., then to Fort Lee, Va., and then to Fort Chaffee in Fort Smith. Finally discharged in 1953, they settled in Hot Springs and he returned to his job at AP&L. He retired in 1988.
Mary stayed home with their two children, Sharon Martin of Cave Springs and the late Steven Daves, and then went to work as a bookkeeper/secretary for the Hot Springs School District. She retired in 1985.
Mary and Walter have three grandchildren and six great-grandchildren, most of whom celebrated their 50th anniversary with them 15 years ago.
"Since we did not have a cake and all that when we got married we had it at our 50th anniversary," Mary says.
She still means the words she wrote about their marriage for that occasion: "Yes, on this, our golden anniversary, I guess we couldn't have it much better. For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, we've been there. Thanks to God for our lives together."
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High Profile on 04/24/2016