LITTLE ROCK — J.D. McClard made a pass to Lois Johnson, she caught it and that set them on a path that has led to 70 years of marriage and counting.
Lois had been captain of the Lakeside girls basketball team before she graduated in 1940, and she got a job with the welfare office in Hot Springs.
She stopped by the school after work one afternoon in late fall 1941 and couldn’t resist peeking in on the basketball practice taking place in the gym.
“I loved basketball,” she says.
J.D., one of the players at that practice, spotted her as she watched and asked a friend who she was.
“My friend said, ‘That’s the best player Lakeside ever had,’” he recalls.
He couldn’t resist passing her the ball, and she couldn’t resist shooting it. She can’t say for sure how far away from the goal she was when she took the shot, but says, “It was pretty far away.”
“I made the goal and the next day he asked me for a date,” she says.
She remembered J.D., then a high school senior, from the practice, but she hesitated to accept his invitation.
“I thought, ‘Oh, he’s younger than me - that’s too young.’ But I thought about it and I thought, ‘Well, I haven’t got anything else to do,’” she says.
They went to a movie on their first date, but even if it hadn’t been so many years back they’re not sure they would remember what was playing.
“I wasn’t looking at the movie!” she says.
“We were looking at each other!” he says.
“And the first kiss - thatkind of won me over,” Lois says. “It was in the car on our first date when he took me home.”
Lois was one of four girls in her family, and her father was wary of any and all boys.
“My dad didn’t want any of us to date,” she says. “He was jealous of his girls and he didn’t want any boys around.”
Lois had her own apartment, though, so the issue ofJ.D. meeting her father didn’t come up until later.
J.D., who worked for his family’s restaurant - Mc-Clard’s Bar-B -Q in Hot Springs - hadn’t quite graduated from high school when he decided it was time to get married.
“We really didn’t date too long,” Lois says. “We went together about three months.”
There wasn’t a formal proposal.
“We liked each other, and I said, ‘Let’s get married,’” he says. “And we did.”
They contacted a preacher and made an appointment for the following Saturday. They exchanged their vows on March 11, 1942, in the minister’s home.
“We didn’t really plan it,” he says. “We just did it.”
“He wanted to get married and so did I,” Lois says. “You married pretty early, pretty young back then. So we just planned the day and asked this couple to go with us.”
She wore a nice dress for the wedding; J.D. wore a suit.
“That’s about the only time I ever wore one,” J.D. says.
It was only after they had exchanged their vows that J.D. met Lois’ father. Lois’ mother, who knew about their wedding plans beforehand, introduced J.D. as Lois’ husband when the newlyweds stopped by a couple of days after they were married.
Lois’ father was reading the newspaper when he heard the news, and he lowered it, giving the impression that he would reach out and shake his son-in-law’s hand.
“I thought he was going to shake hands and I reached out to shake his hand and he put the paper back up - and my hand was just dangling out there,” J.D. says. “I don’t think he liked it at first. We got to be pretty good friends, though.”
J.D., who finished high school the May after they married, and Lois ran Mc-Clard’s Bar-B-Q for many years, eventually turning overoperations to their children.
They have three children - Joe McClard, Phillip Mc-Clard and Brenda Thomason, all of Hot Springs - as well as six grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
Over the years, they have spent quality time together at casinos and racetracks in Shreveport and Hot Springs and owned racehorses for several years.
“We’ve had a real active life,” Lois says.
They never played each other one-on-one in hoops, though.
“I probably would beat him,” she says.
He agrees: “Yep, she probably would.”
My advice for a long happy marriage:
She says: “It’s not always a bed of roses. It’s got its ups and downs and you have to be mature enough to go along with it and know how to figure it out and work out your problems together.” He says: “She went to work and I went to work and we’re working together now. You have to have a lot of patience.”
The first time I saw my future spouse I thought:
He says: “She was a pretty gal and I wanted a date with her.” She says: “He was a goodlooking guy but I wasn’t really sure I wanted to go out with him at first.”
My most vivid memory from our wedding day is:
She says: “I was really happy to be married and get ready to start a family and live a happy life.” He says: “I wasn’t nervous. She was.”If you have an interesting howwe-met story or know someone who does, please call (501) 378-3496 or e-mail:
High Profile, Pages 39 on 03/11/2012