The first time Bob Oliver saw Betty Ferguson was when she arrived as his friend’s date for dinner at Granoff’s in downtown Little Rock with the young professionals group from his church, First Baptist. Betty realized right away that Bob was smitten.
Not with her, but with someone else at the table.
Betty, who was 22, only had that one date with Bob’s friend, but she quickly found her way back to First Baptist’s young professionals group.
“I got acquainted real quick with everyone,” says Betty, who graduated from what is now Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, and was working as a 4-H agent with the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension service. “In fact, I knew some of these people from my college days.”
Betty thought Bob was brilliant - he had, after all, graduated first in his class at the University of Arkansas and he had a good job at IBM. She was thrilled when, not long after she arrived on the scene, he and the girl he was so hung up on started drifting apart.
“She was a nurse at Baptist, I think. I broke that up,” she laughs.
At long last, Bob, 25, asked Betty for a date. They went to dinner at Browning’s Mexican Restaurant in the Heights.
“We had a real whirlwind romance,” Bob jokes, because their romance was anything but a whirlwind.
They had been dating for more than two years when Betty was offered a position as a home extension agent in Helena.
“I guess she decided that would force the issue - I would either marry her or not,” he surmises. “She went ahead and took the promotion.”
Whether that’s really what Betty thought or not, it didn’t work. They didn’t even talk seriously about their future before she left Little Rock.
“I was always hesitant to make a decision,” he says.“So I decided we could keep up our relationship long distance for a while until things worked out.”
When Betty arrived in the Delta she discovered that her opportunities - professional and otherwise - were abundant.
“We weren’t engaged or anything. He was a slow mover, you know,” she quipsof Bob. “Every farmer had a big, young son that had just come back from college to farm with their daddies and I had lots of opportunities,” she says. “Everyone knew the new, young home demonstration agent that was single. I was having a really good time.”
Bob and Betty saw each other most weekends when she returned to Little Rock to visit her sister. He was blissfully unaware of Betty’s new options for a while, but when he found out, it set things in motion.
“He found out I was dating some of these farmers’ sons and he decided he better make a decision because I was not going to wait around for him forever,” she says.
They were soon engaged.
“I didn’t get down on my knees,” Bob says, “but we decided we would go on and get married.”
It was around that time that Betty’s bosses told her a job was opening in Lonoke, which would be within commuting distance for Bob’s job in Little Rock, and they asked her to stay on until they could get her into it.
She and Bob were married on May 4, 1963, at First Baptist Church in Helena.
“The people over there were so gracious and kind to me and it was easier for me to plan a wedding and do it all myself than to work through my home,” she says. “There were two jewelry stores and every day I would have packages - it was almost like Christmas every day. They were just really generous people.”
They took a honeymoon to Panama City, Fla., and set up a temporary home together in Little Rock’s Capitol Hill Apartments, even as Betty continued her work in Helena for several months before starting her new position in November.
Betty and Bob lived in Lonoke for six years before buying a house in North Little Rock, where they still live.
Betty still works for the Extension service, now as volunteer coordinator of the Arkansas Extension Homemakers Council. Bob retired from IBM and went to work as a manager in the data processing center of the Arkansas Department of Computer Services. Now he volunteers at the Arkansas Baptist Foundation.
Baptist churches, they say, have been integral parts of their lengthy relationship, from their first meeting on.
“Church plays a key role,” Bob says. “You have to get active and be involved. It really makes a difference.”The first time I saw my future spouse: She says: “This guy is really goggle-eyed over this nurse.” He says: “She’s very attractive. And I wasn’t really committed - I was still dating here and there.” My biggest memory from our wedding day: She says: “How beautiful things were. The ladies from the church had done so much to make it so beautiful - our wedding cake was so pretty, too.” He says: “I just remember how nervous I was and how glad I was when the ceremony was over and we were on our way.”If you have an interesting howwe-met story or know someone who does, please call (501) 378-3496 or e-mail: cjenkins@arkansasonline.com
High Profile, Pages 35 on 05/05/2013