LITTLE ROCK — After eighty something years, the details of how Earl “Shorty” Biggs and Lola Coats met are vague memories.
“It’s been a long time!” Shorty says. “We’ve known each other most of our lives.”
They were in grade school in Casa the first time they saw each other, he explains. Lola’s family moved from Casa to nearby Aplin for a while before moving back to Casa. Shorty’s parents separated when he was about 7 and he moved from Ola to Aplin, where he lived with an aunt until his father remarried and he moved back to Casa to live with him.
Shorty remembers when they were in high school they “made eyes at each other in the auditorium.”
“I’d wink at her, and that got her attention,” he explains.
“He had a real sweet wink,” Lola says. “He had pretty blue eyes. He would wink at me and I would think, ‘Oh, I like that guy.’ We were just kids then.”
Lola was about 16 and Shorty was 18 when they went on their first date.
“Back then, in a small school like Casa, it was mostly school sports like basketball, and that’s probably how we first went out,” she says.
She thought Shorty was fun to be around.
“Back then, most people had pianos in their homes,” Shorty says. “This was the one thing most poor people had. And they’d have parties for young people and we would go and play games and things like that.”
After graduation, he left Casa for California in search of construction work. He followed employment leads from California to Illinois, and ended up working for John Deere and then for an oil company.
“Back then, you couldn’t just go out and find a job,you had to go where the jobs were,” he says.
They wrote letters while he was away, and he always planned to come back for Lola after she graduated.
“I just wasn’t sure I could get work back home in a little town like that,” he says.
Lola, of course, was aware of the challenges.
“A lot of people left for California and didn’t come back,” Lola says. “He came back and I thought, ‘He’s not getting away from me no more. I’m going with him.’ It took him a while to get back, but I didn’t intend for him to leave without me again.”
He doesn’t remember proposing, and jokes that maybe Lola did.
“I don’t think there was really a proposal,” she interjects. “I think maybe we just always planned to get married. I don’t remember him ever proposing.”
They were 18 and 20 years old when they exchanged vows in front of a justice of the peace on July 3, 1938.
“We didn’t have any fanfare,” she says. “People didn’t really have big weddings back then, at least the people we knew.”
Shorty went to barber college and served as a barber in the Marines in Washington during World War II.
He and Lola lived in Missouri for a while and spent time in Memphis, Camden and Hope before moving to Little Rock to be closer to their aging parents in 1955. They’ve lived in the same house for 48 years.
Shorty opened Esquire Barber Shop on Kavanaugh Boulevard in Little Rock’s Heights district, and, when she was in her 40s, Lola went to nursing school and became a licensed practical nurse. She worked at Arkansas Children’s Hospital for 16 years after their son - Dennis Biggs of Bryant - had grown up and moved away from home.
Lola and Shorty have two grandchildren and two greatgrandchildren.
“Last Sunday, I baptized my great-grandson - he’s 9 and I’m 94,” Shorty says. He and Lola are longtime members of Windsong Church of Christ in North Little Rock. “That was a special day for me.”
There’s no doubt the world has changed since they married 74 years ago.
“Right after we got married, we used a 3-cent stamp to mail a letter, and a gallon of gas was 15 cents at the Midway Station,” Shorty says.
The years have passed quickly, she says.
“It all seems like a dream. It goes so fast when you get older. You just don’t realize coming on what the blessings are - you know, as they’re happening - until later.”
They feel fortunate to have spent all these years together.
“We’ve really had a good life, and I’m thankful for that,” she says. “I can’t get around anymore but we’ve always been able to take care of each other when something happens and he’s taken care of me.”
On our wedding day:
She says: “He had on a blue suit that had little designs - he always loved blue. I couldn’t tell you to save me what dress I wore. I probably didn’t have over two or three.” He says: “I couldn’t tell you what she wore either.”
My advice for a long happy marriage is:
She says: “Make the good Lord the principal thing in your life. And love each other and be committed to each other.” He says: “Be honest and sincere.”If you have an interesting how-we met story or know someone who does, please call (501) 378-3496 or e-mail:
High Profile, Pages 37 on 07/29/2012