RIGHT TIME RIGHT PLACE

Over ice cream dates, he scooped up his bride

Ed Carey and Virginia Heinze were married Aug. 17, 1957. He came to the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, from New York to show off on the basketball court and found himself wowed by her footwork on the dance floor.
Ed Carey and Virginia Heinze were married Aug. 17, 1957. He came to the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, from New York to show off on the basketball court and found himself wowed by her footwork on the dance floor.

Ed Carey and Virginia Heinze have sweet memories of ice cream dates in the student union at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. They fell in love over spoonfuls of mint chocolate chip and still enjoy ice cream dates today, after almost 60 years of marriage.

Ed had been at UA for two years when Virginia transferred as a junior from Little Rock Junior College (now the University of Arkansas at Little Rock) in 1955. They met at a mixer at the Newman Club, the Catholic students' organization on campus, around the start of the fall semester.

The first time I saw my future spouse:

She says: “He had a nice smile and a nice personality and he asked me to dance.”

He says: “She was statuesque, like a glowing statue, and she was just so pretty and petite. I was attracted to her. It wasn’t love at first sight, I don’t think, but it was, ‘Hey let’s date,’ at first sight, and it was, ‘Let’s dance,’ for sure.”

My biggest memory from our wedding day:

She says: “Was when the priest made the vows and made us man and wife.”

He says: “It was just the fact that we were married, and we were going to live together for another lifetime and a half. It was that it had finally happened, and we had so many of our people around us. It was a very emotional day.”

My advice for a lasting marriage is:

She says: “I think it’s important to have God in your life.”

He says: “I learned early on to go along with what she wants to do because everything she wants to do is good.”

She loved dancing and had even taught some dance classes during college, and although Ed wasn't quite as skilled, he just had to dance with Virginia.

"There must have been something about her," Ed says. "I probably didn't affect her thinking there because I'm sure she'll tell you that she was a good dancer -- and I wasn't."

He asked if he could see her again. He was in a fraternity, she was in a sorority, and they had all their meals in their respective houses. The union was a convenient meeting place, and ice cream was a common interest. The midday ice cream breaks were "just a way of getting together," Virginia says.

They sometimes studied at the library together -- although Ed says that wasn't a terribly productive way to prepare for class -- and they went to some university functions, too.

Ed had come to the university to play basketball, recruited by a friend from his hometown, Groton, N.Y.

"I didn't play basketball here. They didn't recognize my talents," Ed quips.

He did run intramural cross country, and thus was gone to meets most weekends that spring. When the first cross-country season of their relationship was over, they decided to date exclusively.

"I don't know how all this happened. I guess because I was gone a lot she decided she missed me," Ed says.

At the end of the next year's cross-country season, they had plans to get together so he could give her an engagement ring, but Ed's fraternity brothers "kidnapped" him. "The pledges had what they called a walkout," he explains. "They said, 'We want to take you to talk to a person who might be a potential pledge.' I said, 'You've been driving quite a while. Where are we going?'"

They took him to Missouri for the weekend. The young man Virginia's sister was dating was tasked with telling Virginia of Ed's situation.

"She wasn't happy, I'll tell you that much," says Ed, who picked another time to give her the ring.

Ed graduated that spring with a degree in physical education and Virginia with one in elementary education.

They were married Aug. 17, 1957, in the Cathedral of St. Andrew in Little Rock, Virginia's hometown. Ed's sister let them borrow her new Chevrolet Impala for their honeymoon in New Orleans. They then traveled to their new home in Groton, where Ed worked on his family's dairy farm. They lived in the big farmhouse for two years while Ed's father, Daniel J. Carey, New York's commissioner of agriculture, served in Washington. "People would come to the house because it was a focal point of everything, and Virginia was put into the situation where she had to cook for everybody," he says.

Virginia, who was teaching kindergarten then, had no experience cooking but she had her mother's recipes, and she learned as she went.

"It took her a while," Ed says. "She was always determined to do the best and she did it."

Ed started teaching and coaching at the high school and had just been named head football coach when he and Virginia decided to accept jobs at Joe. T. Robinson High School -- Ed as head football coach and Virginia as an elementary teacher -- so she could come home to Arkansas.

"He had to love me to do that," Virginia says. "That was a big decision."

Virginia worked in elementary schools in the Pulaski County Special School District for 31 years. Ed left coaching for city government. He later worked in employee benefits with Hagan Newkirk before retiring in 2006.

The Careys have two daughters -- Lisa Carey and Cece McKay, both of Little Rock. They also have two grandchildren.

Ice cream has remained special to them, and it's no wonder. Virginia's grandfather was a confectioner who brought the first soft-serve ice cream maker to Little Rock, and Ed's family is still in the dairy business. The freezer in their Little Rock home is always stocked with several containers of ice cream.

The Careys will celebrate their 60th anniversary with family and friends.

And maybe, they say, they'll enjoy some ice cream together after the guests are gone.

If you have an interesting how-we-met story or if you know someone who does, please call (501) 425-7228 or email:

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Special to the Democrat-Gazette

Virginia and Ed Carey are celebrating their 60th anniversary this week. They fell in love through ice cream dates at the University of Arkansas student union, and they still love eating ice cream together.

High Profile on 08/13/2017

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