In the beginning, George Peters did not think Ouida Ingram would deign to date him.
“She didn’t want to say anything or acknowledge my presence - she was like a queen looking down at a lowly commoner and deciding not to say anything,” he says of their introduction when he was 16. “I thought that was a get-lost stare.”
Boy, did he have it all wrong.
Ouida, then also 16, was simply speechless when she came face to face with George, the tall, muscular, blond lifeguard she knew had a slew of admirers.
“I had heard many things about him. He played the piano - he was a great pianist - he was nice-looking and so forth,” she says.
Ouida was splashing in the lake at an interdenominational church camp in Ringo, La., with a friend who took music lessons from the same teacher as George.
Ouida, urged on by her friend, who insisted on introducing them, found herself standing in front of George, who said he was glad to meet her.
And she said … absolutely nothing.
George, flummoxed, eventually drifted back to his lifeguard duties. He found himself thinking about her over the next few weeks but wasn’t sure he would see her again.
Back home in Texarkana, Ouida was at a radio station for a program with her youth group waiting for a cue to go on air when she realized she was staring right at George, and he back at her.
George, who lived in Texarkana, Texas, started coming to the youth group activities at her church. After a while, Ouida invited him over for hot chocolate and cookies.
“I took that as a clear sign,” he says.
He asked to see her again and she asked him to pick her up at the five-and-dime store when her shift ended.
“He came in and asked for me and they said, ‘Well, her shift is over. She’s gone.’ He thought I had just rejected him,” she says. “He didn’t realize I had just gone back to the back to get my purse and belongings to come outside.”
George jumped in his car and started to speed away.
“I ran out there and stood on the main street of Texarkana and yelled his name just as loud as I could,” she says. “Do you know, he’s hard of hearing, but he heard that?”
George came back and picked up Ouida, and her mother, who was there to buy dishes. Those new plates would be laid out the following day when George came over for dinner. But at that moment, Ouida’s mother was in the car with them and rain was falling on the narrow street leading to Ouida’s house. Those facts and George’s nerves, jangled from the thought that he had been stood up, contributed to what happened next.
“He plowed into the back end of a car that was parked on the side of the street,” Ouida says.
No one was injured, but the police arrived and charged him with reckless driving, and George had to call his father to come and get him out of jail. He was out that day, and at dinner the next.
“We ate on our rickety table with those new dishes,” says Ouida. “It was an old-style round oak table with a central pedestal, and somehow this one had gotten a little loose, and it kind of wobbled just a little bit, especially if anybody rested their elbows on the table. I sat at my part of the table with my knees under it, holding it up for all I was worth so he wouldn’t have the table tilt on him.”
After high school graduation they went to Ouachita Baptist College (now University) in Arkadelphia together. They intended to finish college before marrying but often wandered into Arkadelphia jewelry stores to look at rings, just to figure out what Ouida liked and how much George could afford to spend. Ultimately, they made a purchase.
George’s father did not approve of their timing and vowed not to sign for George, who was too young to get a marriage license without a parent’s permission. His father relented on the day of the wedding, and drove the couple from Texarkana to Arkadelphia and back for the license before the ceremony on Jan. 30, 1954.
George and Ouida raised five children - George Peters Jr. of Shreveport, Alice Peters of Little Rock, Carla Smith of Sheridan, Eva Bakalekos of North Little Rock, and the late Jamie Peters Harper Cantrell. They have 12 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.
After so many years together, Ouida has left her tongue-tied ways behind.
“I don’t think she has let up with her tongue since then,” George says. “She has made up for lost time.”The first time I saw my future spouse: She says: “I was awestruck and tongue-tied.” He says: “I was captivated by her brown eyes.” My advice for a long happy marriage is: She says: “Hang in there. Hold on to the rope because there’s a good firm knot at the end.” He says: “Tr y to have strong faith in common.” On our wedding day: She says: “I was worn out, uptight and just glad to have it over.” He says: “It was a very fulfilling day. I was serious about it, and I had the woman that I thought I would be able to make a good home with.”If you have an interesting how-we-met story or know someone who does, please call (501) 378-3496 or email:
High Profile, Pages 37 on 02/09/2014