RIGHT TIME RIGHT PLACE: He's still smitten with girl in Arkansas gas station window

Evorie Brock was 15 and Lemuel Ward was 19 when they eloped July 19, 1941. “Everyone in town said it wouldn’t last because we were so young,” Evorie says. “Well, we think it’s going to.” Lemuel joined the Navy in 1942 and his wife visited him three times while he was stationed at Camp Rousseau.
Evorie Brock was 15 and Lemuel Ward was 19 when they eloped July 19, 1941. “Everyone in town said it wouldn’t last because we were so young,” Evorie says. “Well, we think it’s going to.” Lemuel joined the Navy in 1942 and his wife visited him three times while he was stationed at Camp Rousseau.

Seeing Evorie Brock pass by the plate glass window of his father's Esso station in Murfreesboro was the highlight of Lemuel Ward's days in 1939.

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Special to the Democrat-Gazette

“I can’t imagine not being married to her,” Lemuel Ward says of Evorie, his wife of 75 years.

He thought she was "a mighty pretty girl."

The first time I saw my future spouse:

She says: “I thought he was the most handsome boy I’d ever seen.”

He says: “I thought she was the cutest thing I’d ever seen.”

On our wedding day:

She says: “I was worried about what my mama was going to say. I had on a light blue skirt and a flowered top and saddle oxfords.”

He says: “We were worried about getting home because I didn’t have any money to buy gas to get us back home. I just wore ordinary clothes. I didn’t have on my Esso coveralls, I just had on jeans and a shirt.”

Evorie, who was 13, had a part-time job taking tickets at the local movie theater, and after many afternoons of observing her from afar Lemuel walked over to talk with her up close. He was going to Nashville, he told her, to pick up some car parts. Would she ask if she could take time off and go with him?

Evorie got permission from her boss -- though not from her parents -- and off they went.

She doesn't remember there being much conversation during the 26-mile round trip.

"We just went there and back," she says. "I was too bashful, so we didn't say much."

Lemuel, who was 17, enjoyed her company anyway, and he went back to the theater a few days later and asked if she would go riding around with him.

Once again, she got permission from her boss -- but not from her parents -- and she and Lemuel rode around with another couple.

Evorie's mother, Pearl Brock, didn't know Lemuel or his family well, but she warned Evorie just the same to "watch out for those wild Ward boys," meaning Lemuel and his brother, neither of whom was particularly wild.

"Seventy-five years later everything is still OK, but at the time my mama didn't know it would be," Evorie allows.

Evorie's family often walked down the creek from their house to a neighbor's to play cards and enjoy homemade ice cream. That seemed innocuous enough on its face, but Lemuel began to realize that the young man in that family had his eyes on Evorie.

On July 19, 1941, Lemuel was so anxious about this situation that he took the day off work so he and Evorie could discuss it. They drove to Hope, about 40 miles away, while they talked.

Evorie assured Lemuel that day that she was devoted to him and had no interest in that other boy, regardless of his interest in her. She mentioned, though, that he might have bought her a ring.

"I asked her if she would marry me and she said she sure would," says Lemuel, whose proposal took even him by surprise.

But Evorie, just 15 then, had no qualms.

"Well, I didn't have much sense," she says. "I'm just glad I did it."

They went to the Hempstead County courthouse for a license and upon their request the clerk pointed them to First Baptist Church in Hope, where they went and exchanged their vows.

Lemuel had a $20 bill in his pocket and he knew he was supposed to pay the preacher so he handed it over, expecting the preacher to give him change back.

The preacher kept the $20 and left the newlyweds without a cent.

"Luckily we had enough gas to get back," Lemuel says.

They decided along the way to keep their nuptials a secret.

"We didn't have any particular length of time to wait," he says. "I was afraid of her folks."

As it turned out, they only waited two days. Lemuel learned that Evorie's mother was planning to take her over to see the neighbors -- including the rival neighbor boy -- that afternoon.

He called her mother that morning to spill the beans about their elopement and put the kibosh on their neighborly visit.

Evorie's mother was devastated, and her father was furious.

Lemuel and Evorie moved in with his family and started their life together. She finished high school, even playing on the basketball team.

In September 1942, Lemuel left Murfreesboro to join the Navy. Evorie visited him three times while he was stationed at Camp Rousseau, near Oxnard, Calif., before he returned home in January 1946.

Lemuel worked for his father at the Esso station, Grady Ward Garage and Machine Shop, until his father died in 1976. He took over the shop then, and ran it until he retired in 1993.

Evorie stayed home to rear their two children -- Mary Anne Jones of Murfreesboro and the late Grady Ward -- until she was 42, when she enrolled in classes at Henderson State University. She earned a bachelor's degree in education and taught elementary school in Murfreesboro for 15 years.

The Wards, who have two grandchildren and five great-grandchildren, will celebrate their 75th anniversary from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. today in the fellowship hall at First Baptist Church in Murfreesboro.

"I can't imagine not being married to her," says Lemuel, who is known to blow kisses at her when she leaves their home without him.

They still hold hands and they always kiss goodnight.

"Everyone in town said it wouldn't last because we were so young," Evorie says. "Well, we think it's going to."

If you have an interesting how-we-met story or if you know someone who does, please call (501) 425-7228 or email:

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High Profile on 07/24/2016

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