LITTLE ROCK — Graydon Brown and Betty Goad go way back — all the way back to third grade, in fact.
Betty, three months older than Graydon, was half a grade ahead of him when she transferred to the grade school in the Rose City area of North Little Rock, where her family moved from Pine Bluff.
“When we went to school, there was a 1A and a 1B,” Graydon explains.
“I started school earlier than he could,” Betty says.
For years, they had typical grade-school interactions, which included Graydon joining his classmates in calling Betty “ol’ four eyes” because she wore glasses.
“Back then, we weren’t even thinking about being boyfriend and girlfriend,” he says.
They went to the same church — Washington Avenue Methodist Church in North Little Rock — and they lived just one street apart.
“We lived so close together and we had bicycles and we rode to the Old Mill and over to [the park] and different places, the whole group of us. I liked another girl at one time and she got to liking this other boy so I started liking this gal here,” Graydon says.
Graydon can’t recall who asked whom to a movie — their first date — when he was in ninth grade and Betty was in 10th.
“But I do remember the show we went to see was Gunga Din,” he says. “I don’t know who suggested it, but I probably did. Of course we met there and we had to ride the bus back home and I walked her down to where she turned off to go to her house and I went on to my house. I didn’t even walk her home.”
They dated more or less from then on, according to Graydon.
“I had to go in the service — I joined the Navy when I was 17 so I could get the Navy, because if you got drafted you didn’t get a choice,” he says. “We had planned on getting married and I was in Honolulu, and I got her name tattooed on my arm and I came back and she said, ‘Well, what if we don’t get married?’ And I said, ‘Well, I’ve got your name tattooed on my arm whether we get married or not.’”
He was in the Philippines when he got a 10-day leave in February 1945. There was no question they would use it as an opportunity to marry.
“I think that we just really thought this was what was going to happen and I don’t know that he ever said, ‘Will you marry me?’” Betty says.
They got their license and did what little planning was necessary and on Feb. 27, 1945, they exchanged their vows at Washington Avenue Methodist Church. An ice storm had knocked down trees and power lines that night and the power was out in the church.
“We had a candlelight service,” Betty says.
Graydon’s cousin was also on leave from the Navy, and many of the guests mistook him for Graydon as he lighted candles in the building, both of them dressed in their Navy uniforms.
It was slow going because of the weather, but the newlyweds finally made it to the Alamo Hotel on Roosevelt Road in Little Rock for a one-night honeymoon.
Two days later, Graydon left again for the Philippines. He had had five days at home, using the other five to get to and from the Naval base.
Later that year, the ship he was on was hit by a kamikaze plane.
“It killed all the boys on the other side of the ship I was on and it went right over my head,” he recalls. “It didn’t hurt anybody in our group but it killed 50-something men and injured another 150 when that one plane crashed on us.”
Graydon was sent to Bremerton, Wash., where the ship was in dry dock for repairs, and he called Betty — who had no idea his ship had been attacked until then — and told her she should get on a train and meet him there.
She made the trip, four days there and four days back, and stayed with him for five weeks.
“There was no place to sleep — you slept sitting up,” she says. “Every seat [in the train] was full.”
Betty again went to be with Graydon when he was sent to Philadelphia to help decommission another ship. From that city she went to Memphis to stay with cousins and waited for him to arrive — he was soon to be discharged — and then finally, they were able to take a bus home together.
The Browns have three sons — Paul of Cabot, Don of Sherwood and Joe of Dallas. They also have six grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
After 67 years together, Graydon reckons they’ll stay a couple.
“I can’t get rid of her,” he jokes.
The first time I saw my future spouse, I thought:
She says: “I didn’t think he was any different from any of the other kids at school.”
He says: “I didn’t have any idea we would get together.”
My advice for a long, happy marriage:
She says: “Be sure you love somebody before you marry them.”
He says: “Don’t fuss and fight.”
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High Profile, Pages 37 on 03/04/2012