RIGHT TIME RIGHT PLACE

Her grandma proved to be able matchmaker

Donna and Lawrence Harrison on their wedding day, June 2, 1962
Donna and Lawrence Harrison on their wedding day, June 2, 1962

— It might have taken a bit longer than some would like, but Lawrence Harrison eventually decided that his accompanist was the perfect girl to accompany him on a date.

In January 1959, Lawrence, a freshman at then-Ouachita Baptist College in Arkadelphia, started his new job as music and youth director at First Baptist Church in Norphlet.

He was in Arkadelphia during the week and would spend weekends with his parents in Smackover so he could lead youth activities on Saturdays and then lead the music for morning and evening services at church.

On his first Sunday at work, Donna Mason’s grandparents invited him to lunch at their house, across the street from the church.

“It was just the three of us,” Lawrence remembers. “Her granddaddy always took an afternoon nap on Sunday so he got in his easy chair and went to sleep and her grandmother got out all the old picture albums, from day one with Donna until the present.”

Donna, then a high school sophomore, was unaware of the time Lawrence spent with her grandmother.

“I don’t know why, but she just started telling him about me,” she says. “Of course I didn’t know she was doing it and I was embarrassed when I found out.”

Lawrence says he had nothing better to do that afternoon between services, and that he enjoyed looking at the pictures of her dance recitals, sixth-grade graduation and such.

Lawrence had a girlfriend at OBC (now Ouachita Baptist University), but they broke up a few months after he joined the church staff.

“It took me from January to June to get that case broken up,” jokes Donna, who was the pianist for his youth choir and children’s choir.

It was June, in fact, when he finally asked her for a date.

“I was practicing the organ one afternoon at the church and he came up at the side of the organ and I couldn’t get out,” she says.

He probably would have asked her for a date anyway, but he had some “encouragement” from the youth group.

“I would have the parties, have things for the young people,” he says. “The young people decided they wanted Donna and me to date. I don’t know whether Donna had put a bug in their ears or not. They teamed up against me and actually boycotted some of my youth activities because I would not ask her for a date … so I was encouraged in that direction.”

She had liked him from the start, she says of the slender college boy with the stylish crew cut.

“I liked him from the very beginning and I had already felt like I wanted to be a pastor’s wife,” she says.

Their first date was to a movie in nearby El Dorado, and she soon became his unofficial assistant with the youth group. They took the group on trips and outings, like to the bowling alley in El Dorado, where they could bowl from midnight until 4 or 5 a.m. for a dollar, followed by a trip to get doughnuts.

The night Donna graduated from high school, she and Lawrence broke away from the house full of guests who had come to celebrate with her family and drove to El Dorado to get a soda.

On the way back, Lawrence proposed and gave her an engagement ring.

“Then I went home and we told my parents and the house was full of company from my graduation and it was a little stressful because of course my parents thought I was too young and thought I should get through college first,” she says.

Lawrence graduated from college just before they married on June 2, 1962, at First Baptist Church in Norphlet.

Donna had completed her freshman year at OBC by then, and after they moved to Fort Worth so Lawrence could go to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, she finished her teaching degree at Texas Wesleyan University.

Lawrence pastored churches in Tillar, El Dorado, Huttig, Smackover and Norphlet over the years, and now he is interim pastor of Salem Baptist Church near Magnolia. Donna left teaching in 1989 to focus on their business, Harrison’s Christian Book Store in ElDorado, which they sold in 2006.

The Harrisons have three children - Laurie Key of Little Rock, Larry Harrison of Katy, Texas, and Lane Harrison of Ozark, Mo. They also have five grandchildren.

Donna and Lawrence are happy to have been together through 50 years of marriage.

“We’ve had a happy home,” Donna says. “That’s not to say we haven’t had our bad times or our struggles because everybody does. But mostly we’ve just been happy.”

My advice for a long happy marriage is:

She says: “Lots of prayer, lots of love, lots of forgiveness. Anybody can get a divorce, but if you just determine from the beginning you’re going to be together there won’t be any question.” He says: “Make the Lord the center of the relationship.”

The first time I saw my future spouse I thought:

She says: “I really liked him. He’s cute.” He says: “She was just a sweet little girl.”If you have an interesting how-we met story or know someone who does, please call (501) 378-3496 or e-mail:

cjenkins@arkansasonline.com

High Profile, Pages 37 on 05/27/2012

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