LITTLE ROCK — Jack Tobias wasn’t too computer savvy, but the messages he tapped out on his keyboard back in 2005 went straight to Freda Gillespie’s heart.
Jack, who was 62, had just moved to Independence, Miss., from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., when he stumbled upon an online Christian singles dating site.
“I didn’t really have that much time to spend on it,” he says. “I was just learning about the Internet.”
About three months after he signed up, he found Freda’s profile.
“I said I was lucky to be a country farm girl and blessed to go to the city, and happy to know both worlds or something like that,” says Freda, who was 64.
He sent her a message.
She had met a few interesting people through the site but was cautious and did not respond.
“He just kept coming back,” Freda says. “Finally he said something that made me laugh.”
The line that got her attention was this: “Lordy, lordy, lordy, do you realize a man could fall off in your eyes and never be seen again?”
She explained that her photo was a glamour shot and that she didn’t look that way every day, and then asked why there was no photo of him.
“I said, ‘You ought to picture an old, balding combination of Richard Dreyfuss and Kenny Rogers,’” Jack says.
They corresponded for several days before Freda gave Jack her phone number.
“He called me that night and there was something about his voice that was very calming and soothing and I really enjoyed talking with him, and it sounded like he did believe very much the way I did about very many, many things,” she says. “And to clench it, at the end of the conversation, he said, ‘Do you mind if we pray?’”
She absolutely did not mind.
“We’ve spoken every single day since that first night and we’ve prayed every day,” Freda says.
They talked for about two months before they decided to meet.
Jack went back home after visiting Freda, but a couple of months later he leased an apartment and moved to Little Rock.
They had been at ease with each other from the very beginning, and Freda was half asleep on the sofa as they watched TVthe night he proposed.
“He was talking and he said, ‘Would you marry me?’ and I go, ‘Uh huh,’ and the next day - this is the part that’s so funny - he said, ‘Do you remember what I asked you last night? And I said, ‘Yep.’ I was so near asleep he thought I didn’t hear him.”
They were both very busy - Jack with starting a job at Chenal Country Club and Freda with her work as a Realtor with Rainey Realty. It happened to be Valentine’s Day when Freda learned they could get a marriage license for $50 that had no set date they could use within a 60-day period.
Jack agreed they should go ahead and get the license, then decide which of their churchfriends would do the ceremony. The 60-day window would also give them time to let their families know about their plans, they reasoned. So they headed to the Pulaski County Courthouse.
“There was a judge there marrying all these people. This lady took our information and our IDs and she had typed out the license and she said, ‘Do you want to take these or are you going to get married here because I can finish it up in the computer if you are.’”
Jack answered that they would take the $50 license.
“I touched his arm and I said, ‘You got me here, why don’t we go ahead and do it?’” she says.
Jack was incredulous but thrilled.
They didn’t take a honeymoon after their wedding on Feb. 14, 2006.
“We haven’t needed one,” he says. “A lot of people feel like they need to go places and do stuff, but we’re just so content to come home at the end of the day and be together.”
Jack does all the groceryshopping and cleans the house and he gets up every morning to make Freda’s breakfast.
“You think I’m not spoiled?” she says. “And because he does all that for me, I want to do more for him.”
Freda urged Jack to have published A New Home for Mopgolly Mole, one of several stories he had written over the years to share in his children’s ministries.
“It’s almost scary when I stop and think how wonderful it’s all been,” she says. “It’s just so comfortable and good. I do think about, though, how we could have just passed [like ships] in the night. There’s no other way that we ever would have chanced to meet if it had not been on that [web]site.”
On our wedding day:
She says: “I thought ‘I just want to be married to this man so why not today.’ And it was Valentine’s Day. I was very excited about it.” He says: “Surprise, surprise, surprise!”
The first time I saw my future spouse:
She says: “I felt my heart do a little flip.” He says: “I knew she was stunning in her picture. When we talked - and when we prayed together, because that was so important to me - I knew she was the one for me.”If you have an interesting how-wemet story or know someone who does, please call (501) 378-3496 or e-mail:
High Profile, Pages 43 on 10/23/2011