The path Ray Hanley and Diane Dickman were on to help children led them right to each other.
Ray was working with foster children in his job with the Arkansas Department of Social Services in 1980. Diane was an occupational therapist in the Child Study Center in the Psychiatric Study Unit at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
They first met when Ray took one of the children in his care to the Child Study Center, and then they saw each other throughout the course of that child's treatment.
In the beginning, they were both dating other people.
"I didn't think much about him beyond, 'That's a nice, tall, redheaded guy," Diane says.
In January 1981, they had a workshop together during a conference and they connected over conversations about the child they had both worked with.
"I had been visiting with the young man at a facility in Texas," Diane says. "I showed Ray the pictures I had of the young man that he had taken care of."
Ray asked her out for the next Saturday.
"I had been thinking about it," he says. "The opportunity just presented itself."
They went to the Villa Italian Restaurant on University Avenue in Little Rock for their first date.
"I liked that he was always cracking jokes and kind of keeping everything funny," she says. "He just told me story after story about working in foster care, about all these funny people that he had met there and in the food stamp office. I just laughed the whole time. I guess it was probably at that point, that first date is kind of when I knew."
Murry's Dinner Playhouse was their second date destination.
"That was very impressive," Diane says. "That was a very nice place to go."
On their third date they went to see "9 to 5" with Dolly Parton at the UA Cinema 150.
"In the line that always curved around the front of the building we ran into some good friends of mine from the church group that I had been part of for a couple of years," she says. "I was real happy to introduce them to this nice young man because I had missed the meetings a couple of times to go out with this guy."
A few months later, Ray introduced Diane to backpacking.
"That was a learning experience," Diane says. "It was perfect until the rain started. It rained like crazy."
Richland Creek, near Witts Springs, rose and they couldn't get back across the Twin Falls Trail to Ray's car.
"We had to go up the creek and cross on a log over the flooded creek and walk a couple of miles through the woods to get back to the road," Ray says.
Ray was an active member of the Sierra Club, and she joined him for many of their outings.
"I got my own backpack and we started having adventures," she says. "It was just a real happy season all over the place."
Ray traveled over the summer after they met with his mother and brother.
"He sent me a postcard from somewhere -- I think it was South Dakota," she says. "Postcards kind of figure into this thing."
The postcard had a sketch of clinking wineglasses on the front.
"It said, 'Here's a toast to I hope I never take a toast again without you,'" she says.
They got engaged in August.
"I think it was just kind of unspoken between us," Diane says. "We had been thinking along those lines. We just kind of knew."
They had gone to a pre-cana conference at the Catholic Diocese of Little Rock, meant for couples preparing for marriage, weeks earlier.
"We had thought that would probably help us decide what we wanted to do, so we signed up," she says.
They were married on Dec. 5, 1981, at Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church in Little Rock.
"It was very much a homemade affair," Diane says. "We spent the Thursday night before rolling sausage balls in Ray's mom's kitchen, and we had a couple of friends coordinate the reception in the school cafeteria. It was just a lot of love."
They honeymooned in Georgia, backpacking through Cumberland Island National Seashore near St. Marys, Ga., and spending a couple of nights at the King and Prince Hotel on St. Simon Island.
"Our Volkswagen Rabbit was all packed with sleeping bags and tents and stuff and we had dinner at the Western Sizzlin' in Pine Bluff," Diane says.
They have three children -- Rachel Glenn, Emily Staples and Joseph Hanley, all of Little Rock.
Diane retired from UAMS. Ray is CEO at the Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care. He also writes "Arkansas Postcard Past" for the Democrat-Gazette. He has written more than 20 books, some on his own, some with his late brother, Steven, and some edited by Diane, featuring postcards from his collection.
Ray and Diane didn't see each other often through work after they started dating. Ray had taken a different position around that time.
"There just happened to be enough coordination of timing to make the sparks fly," she says.
If you have an interesting how-we-met story or if you know someone who does, please call (501) 425-7228 or email:
kdishongh@adgnewsroom.com
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The first time I saw my future spouse:
She says: “I had always thought a tall redhead would be perfect for me, and then he walked in. He’s a tall redhead.”
He says: “I noticed she was a pretty interesting girl with long blond hair halfway down her back.”
On our wedding day:
She says: “I just felt immersed in love from all the people around us.”
He says: “Somebody pinned a flower on me and I don’t think I had ever worn a flower before. I kept looking down at that flower.”
My advice for a long happy
marriage:
She says: “Pray together, out loud, and share adventures. Do work projects together.”
He says: “Don’t let the small things bother you or irritate you. And most things, in the big picture, are small things.”