Nancy Roland refused to go on a blind date until her mother bribed her with a new dress. A few weeks later, Nancy was announcing her engagement.
Her friend, Carroll, wanted to arrange a blind date between Nancy and Ark Monroe. Ark, Carroll's boyfriend's roommate, was in Little Rock for a summer job with the Election Research Council between his second and third years at the University of Arkansas School of Law.
The first time I saw my future spouse:
He says: “I was taken by how pretty she was and how much personality she had. She was easy to meet. I like people who are easy to meet and easy to talk to.”
She says: “I just knew it was him. It was just something about the way he could relate to my mother and grandmother. I was very close to them and I spent an inordinate amount of time with my grandparents.”
On our wedding day:
He says: “It was a beautiful day. It had rained pitchforks the day before. The sky was on the ground and it was terrible. But the next morning it was crisp and cold, and Nancy had been a good faithful member of Second Presbyterian. It was a great day and it was easy.”
She says: “As we were exchanging our vows, his father, who was the best man, hands him the ring and he holds it out there and puts it on and he just stands there and doesn’t say anything, like he’s frozen. So I said, ‘Ark, it’s your turn.’ He just stood there and didn’t say anything. The minister said, ‘Ark, it’s time to do the vows.’ And he just stood there. The third time, I said, ‘Ark, it’s your turn.’ And then finally he said, ‘Oh, OK, I got this.’ The congregation all started laughing.”
My advice for a lasting marriage:
He says: “Have a good sense of humor. You have to laugh a lot and you have to respect each other. If you don’t respect each other, that makes the relationship hard. You have to love each other.”
She says: “You have to have a sense of humor. You have to be able to laugh at your own mistakes and laugh at each other’s misgivings.”
"When Carroll called me and asked if I wanted to go on this blind date, I said, 'No, I'm not interested,'" says Nancy, who was home for the summer after teaching in Albuquerque, N.M. "'I've been on a jillion blind dates. There's a reason they can't get their own dates. I've been there and don't want to do it.'"
Her mother overheard the conversation.
"She said, 'You ought to go. You never know. Go have a nice evening out. Go out to the Clothes Horse and I'll buy you a new dress,'" Nancy says. "I thought, 'Well, OK. That's not that bad. ... If it doesn't work out, I still have a new dress.'"
Ark and his roommates were planning on cooking hamburgers at their apartment, and they both had dates, so he asked them to find a date for him.
He stopped at Carroll's house on the way to pick up Nancy and chatted with her parents (Carroll's father knew Ark's through the insurance business) while waiting for a rainstorm to pass. He was an hour late picking up Nancy, who exacted punishment by leaving him downstairs with her mother and grandmother for another half hour.
"What she didn't know is that I grew up in Magnolia with a grandmother and seven great-aunts so this wasn't any big trick for me," Ark says. "I had been around senior ladies all my life."
His demeanor gave her hope.
"From the top of the stairs I could hear them laughing and I thought, 'Well, this isn't working out how I thought it would. He seems to be having a really good time,'" she says. "I thought, 'Well, this might be fun tonight.' I never thought farther than 'tonight,' but it just kept going. It didn't take long."
They went to a discount store for cookout supplies, and Ark quips that he stumbled on the perfect first date.
"I didn't know at that time how much she liked to shop," he says.
Ark's busy work schedule didn't leave him much free time, but on his weekends off they saw movies and visited his aunt, uncle and cousins in Pine Bluff.
Their first date was on June 23, 1966. On July 26, they were in the backseat of a car driven by one of Ark's friends, on the way to meet another of his friends from Blytheville for water skiing.
As they rode along, Ark asked Nancy about her plans for the future. Nancy replied that she intended to go back to her teaching job in Albuquerque, but Ark had another proposition. He offered to write a letter to the school district, convincing them to allow her to break her contract.
"I said, 'Well, then what am I going to do?'" Nancy says. "He said, 'Why don't we get married?' I said, 'I never thought of that. Wow. OK. I think that's a yes.'"
They swore Ark's friend and his date to secrecy until they could tell their families they were engaged, and a few days later they headed to Magnolia so Nancy could meet Ark's family as their daughter-in-law-to-be.
Ark and his father went to Murphy's Jewelers in Magnolia to pick out a ring, and then called Ark's mother, sister and Nancy to come and look at it. Nancy was thrilled with it and was wearing it when they went to talk with her family in Little Rock.
Nancy stayed in Little Rock while Ark went back to Fayetteville that term. They were married on Dec. 28, 1966, at Second Presbyterian Church, then in downtown Little Rock, while he was on break.
After the wedding, they spent the night at the Red Apple Inn in Heber Springs and then went to Tan-Tar-A Resort at the Lake of the Ozarks in Osage Beach, Mo., before going on to Fayetteville, where Ark had to be ready to take final exams.
Ark went into private practice in Magnolia after graduation. Five years later he was appointed state insurance commissioner by Gov. Dale Bumpers, which meant a move to Little Rock. When Bumpers was elected to the U.S. Senate, Ark moved to Washington with him to serve as legislative director.
The Monroes have lived in Little Rock since 1981. Ark is a lawyer at Mitchell Williams. He and Nancy spend time with their children -- John Monroe, Christopher Monroe and Sarah Priebe, all of whom live within a mile of them -- and their five grandchildren each day. They enjoy being alone together, as well.
"At this stage in our lives, we spend a lot of time together, just the two of us, even though we have all this extended family in town," Ark says. "You know, if we didn't like each other this would be pretty miserable. We genuinely have a good time together. We genuinely like each other."
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High Profile on 01/15/2017