James McDaniel Jr. might have thought he was seeing double, but there was really only one girl he was interested in.
Adrin Whitten and her nearly identical twin sister, Audren, recent high school graduates, had just moved from Prattsville to Jones Mill because their father got a job with a mill in nearby Hot Springs, and they often caught the bus into Hot Springs to see movies on Sunday afternoons.
The first time I saw my future spouse:
She says: “I thought he was real good looking. He was dark-headed with sort of gray-brown eyes. He was well-built, and he dressed nice. He had an olive complexion. I thought he looked nice and I liked the way he carried himself. He was a little on the flirty side.”
He says: “She was as cute as could be. She was moving around real fast, jumping around on her feet like a rabbit. I said, ‘I gotta meet that girl.’”
My advice for a long happy marriage is:
She says: “Talk it out and forget and forgive, which you have to do a lot. Keep your children in mind because you don’t want to hurt the family, so just work it out.”
He says: “You’ve just got to stay together, that’s all.”
James and his friend saw the petite girls walking down the street toward the Strand Theater in Hot Springs and James was on the lookout for them thereafter. When he found Adrin inside the theater, he claimed the empty seat behind her.
"He would punch me in the back and try to talk to me," Adrin says. "I would tell him to stop because I wanted to watch the movie."
His flirtations went unappreciated, and unreciprocated, during the showing of How to Marry a Millionaire, so when the movie was over he followed them downstairs to the lobby and continued his efforts.
"They were still trying to talk to us," she says. "He asked me where I lived and I told him I lived in a house with a roof. He said, 'Well, I'm surprised, with the way you're acting.'"
Adrin was being coy, but she and her sister didn't dare dawdle after the movie.
"My parents were strict and we had to be home at a certain time," she says. "We rode the work bus that carried the workers from the plant to Hot Springs or back to the plant and we had to be sure we caught that bus to get home."
It wasn't until the third time this scenario repeated that Adrin finally gave in and conversed with James. Before the credits rolled, she had given him her address.
She wasn't expecting him to visit, necessarily, but he and his friend rolled up in front of her house one day not long after that and blew the car horn. Adrin and her sister went outside to talk to them.
"I can't remember if we invited them in or not, but that's how we started talking," she says. "And then we went on a date."
They began seeing each other every Saturday night, as well as one night during the week, and even more often when her parents would allow it. Instead of watching to see if Adrin was going to the theater, James began picking her up and taking her there himself. He sat with her and held her hand, and they talked even as the action unfolded on screen.
"We always had something to say to one another," she says. "We would talk about what we had done and my sister and her date were with us usually so we would talk, too."
Her sister was with them always, for "safety" purposes, as their mother insisted.
The little group found joy in driving around to look at the scenery in town and climbing to the top of the Ouachita Mountains, visiting the county fair when it was in season and occasionally road-tripping to the Little Rock Zoo.
"Just anything really so we could be together," Adrin says.
One night, as James and Adrin were talking, he dropped to his knee.
"He said, 'How about us getting married?'" she says.
She said yes, although her acceptance was contingent upon his asking for her father's blessing.
They exchanged their vows on Dec. 24, 1954, in the study of Memorial Baptist Church in Hot Springs.
Adrin's sister had stood up with them during the wedding. When the ceremony was over, they drove her home and then headed to the apartment they would share in Hot Springs.
"That was sort of sad for me to go back without her, especially because I knew she was so sad," Adrin says. They spent Christmas Day with James' family and visited Adrin's in the evening.
The McDaniels have two sons -- Shannon McDaniel and Joel McDaniel, both of Hot Springs -- and three grandchildren.
When the boys were babies, young enough that they would sleep in the car, Adrin and James would take them to the drive-in movie theater. As they grew and that became less of an option, they started watching movies at home, where of course a no-talking policy is impractical.
Communication hasn't always flowed as freely as it did for them during the movies. "It took a lot of work because we had problems like a lot of other couples," Adrin says. "We had to learn to talk to one another and work problems out and just be honest with one another."
Just like in the movies, though, they are living their happily-ever-after.
"I married her 60 years ago," James says, "and I've been happy with her ever since."
If you have an interesting how-we-met story or if you know someone who does, please call (501) 378-3496 or email:
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High Profile on 01/18/2015