LITTLE ROCK — Ruth Bear thought from the beginning that Larry Livers might be her Mr. Right, and tossed out hint after hint that he should ask her out. She finally took the lead and asked him out, and he went but said he wanted to be friends. Ruth thought that was a fine idea.
Larry, whose family lived about six blocks from the Bears in Indianapolis, had joined the Air Force after high school and was stationed in Peru, Ind., in the northern part of the state.
Peru was only about 50 miles from Indianapolis, so Larry would drive home on his three-day breaks.
He and Ruth had double dated - she with her boyfriend, and he with his girlfriend - in the past. Once he and his girlfriend, who lived across the street from Ruth, broke up he would wander over and talk to Ruth and her family on occasion.
“He came to my house and he was just visiting with us and he said, ‘I think I’m going to go bowling.’
And I said, ‘Oh, I love to bowl!’” Ruth says. “He said, ‘I think I’m going to take in a movie.’ I said, ‘Oh, I love to go to movies!’”
But Larry never took the bait.
On one of his breaks, he brought a friend home with him, and he called Ruth to see if they could double-date again.
“I asked her if I could get her to go out with my friend and she went out with my friend and we double-dated and the girl I was going with didn’t dance and my buddy didn’t dance, but that night we went out to go dancing, and they said, ‘Well, you two dance; go dance,’” he says. “We danced the night away together.”
The next time he had a break and his friend headed home with him, he called Ruth again.
“I said how about going out tonight - you and Sam and me and one of your girlfriends,” he says. “She said, ‘Well, I’ll tell you what, I’ll go out with you and I’ll fix my girlfriend up with Sam.’”
Larry says he hadn’t thought to ask her to be his date because she had gone out with his friend and he certainly didn’t want to intrude on any relationship they might have.
“Before that she had a boyfriend and, of course, I had a girlfriend at the time, and then after I broke up with my girlfriend, she still had a boyfriend. I’m an honorable man so, of course, I wasn’t going to intrude on somebody else’s territory,” he says.
Ruth, though, had finally gotten tired of waiting, steeled her nerves and made her move.
“I was getting so desperate that I decided when he calls I better ask him out,” she says.
They had a great time dancing on their first date, and started seeing each other regularly.
There was his caveat, however.
“I said, ‘I just want a good friend,’ and she said, ‘Well, I’ll be a good friend to you,’” Larry recalls.
Six months after they became “friends” it was Larry who couldn’t wait to ask a question.
“I called her on the phone while I was up at the base and said, ‘Will you marry me?’” he says. “And she said, ‘Have you been drinking?’”
Ruth, in her own defense, explains: “I was still on this thing where he just wanted a good friend.”
She said, yes, though, and they were married six months later, on July 7, 1962, at St. Francis Church in Logansport, Ind.
The Liverses started out their life together in Peru but were soon sent to the Philippines, then Hawaii, followed by Nebraska, Texas, Virginia and Okinawa, Japan. They also spent time in Maine, Ohio and North Carolina before finally settling in their current home in Sherwood.
They have two children and two grandchildren.
Ruth, dressed in her ballerina gown, was late getting to the church for their wedding because she was held up by a traffic incident.
“I was sitting there with this dress on that’s all over the backseat and there’s a train on the tracks,” Ruth says. “I thought, ‘This only happens in cartoons. We’re so late. But they’re not going to get married without me.’”
When she arrived at the church she found the priest pacing on the porch. She found Larry waiting for her, too, and she asked him yet another question.
“I said, ‘Are you really sure?’ He said, ‘Yes!’” she says. “And I said, ‘OK, I’ll be your friend.’”
Larry couldn’t have asked for more. He says, “She’s been a good friend to me for the last 50 years.”
My first impression of my future spouse was:
She says: “I thought he was very good-looking and I liked that he was very protective of his mother. I’ve always heard that if a man is good to his mother he’ll be good to his wife. My girlfriend said he was too flirty, but I didn’t see that.” He says: “When she would walk away I would look at her and think she had a nice little swing.”
On our wedding day:
She says: “It was so hot! It was 104 degrees. And the dress that I picked out was a size 11 and they said oh, well, we can cut it down. They kept altering it, but the day of the wedding I remember looking down and the dress was big enough at the top on me that I could look right through the dress to the floor.” He says: “One of the couples who were there had a very small baby and they had us hold the baby and took a picture of us. It’s one of the few pictures we still have.”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 39 on 11/25/2012