Noel
I was going with a girl for almost two years. I felt that I needed to talk to her about being a pastor’s wife. I thought that the pastor’s wife should believe that she had a call to be a pastor’s wife. A lot would be asked of her, and I wanted to make sure she could commit to this ministry. When she said that she did not have a call or felt that she could be a pastor’s wife, we agreed that we should each go our separate ways. A big part of why I felt the way I did, was my mother, a very devoted pastor’s wife, and very much involved in the ministry. After breaking up, I didn’t know what God had planned for me. I did not have any other girl in mind to date. After someone mentioned to me that I should ask Ruby, I thought to myself, “why not?” (Mom said I was desperate). I knew who she was, just didn’t know her personally. I was a senior, and she was a freshman. So one day in November, I asked if she would like to go to chapel with me, which became the start of our dating. I remember that night, I also asked if she would go with me to the annual Christmas Dinner. Again she said yes. From then on, we tried to spend as much time together as we could. Christmas vacation made it hard since we could not be together, but as some say, “being apart makes love grow fonder.” Back together after Christmas, I knew in my heart that Ruby was the one that God was giving to me to serve alongside in ministry as my wife. I didn’t have to ask her if she could or felt called. I just knew. I am blessed beyond measure. (Mom’s comment – “You surely are).
As May approached, I (Noel) knew I wanted our engagement to be something special. I wanted it to be something that would be a real remembrance and something that would also include our commitment to the Lord Jesus. Nothing came to me right at first. One day I was walking across campus, I looked up to the west to the top of the hill overlooking the campus, the town of Blair, and across the Missouri River Valley all the way to Missouri Valley, Iowa, it came to me, “there at the foot of the cross.” And then I thought, why not on the day of my graduation. Knowing that day would be busy, and we both, along with two others, would be leaving that evening for California, why not right after midnight on the day I would graduate? Every night a train would go through Blair right at midnight, which meant I would have my alarm clock blast off with the train’s horn. That evening I told Ruby I wanted to go up to the cross and spend some time there before I graduate. I took a blanket to sit on the ground, a good place to hide the ring. I waited for the train’s horn to sound off. When that happened, I waited for a few minutes to ensure it was May 29, 1960, graduation day. I took the ring out from under the blanket and asked Ruby if she would marry me. I’m not sure if her answer was a quick “yes” or if I had to wait for a few seconds. At any rate, as you can see, the answer was “yes.” God has blessed me with a Godly wife, and now at the time of this writing, we have celebrated our 60th Wedding Anniversary. GOD IS SO GOOD!
Ruby
I was smitten with Noel’s looks when I saw his picture on his parents’ piano before I attended Dana in 1959. When he carried my suitcases up to my dorm room when I arrived as a freshman, I had wishful thinking that I would love to date him, even though he already had a steady girlfriend. When he broke up with his gal, I didn’t dream I even had a chance for a date. After our first date to chapel, I found out that he must have liked me, and I felt the same for him when we began to spend more time together. It was Christmas, and I went back to visit my parents in California. We hated to be apart, so we wrote many letters because we didn’t have cell phones to communicate. I came back to college, and we continued our relationship, and our love grew deeper. We both knew that we would love to spend our lives together as husband and wife. After he graduates from college for four years, Noel would be going to the Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa, and I would remain at Dana.
Noel being the creative one, had his proposal all planned out. He wanted to get engaged on his college graduation. In Blair, Nebraska, the train would go through the town at midnight each night, blowing its whistle….how appropriate. Behind the college, there was an approximate twenty-foot cross on a hill overlooking the valley and Dana. Noel’s idea was to get engaged in front of that cross as a symbol of our love for each other and the unity and oneness we would share with each other and the Lord for the rest of our lives. When the train would blow its whistle, Noel would know it was midnight. He asked me to climb the hill with him, took a blanket where we would just sit and overlook the city of Blair together….never did I know he brought up the ring and hid it under the blanket. When the whistle blew, he knew it was graduation day, and he was excited to ask me to marry him….a wonderful surprise to me. I was overwhelmed, and with no hesitation, said YES… I had to go back to the dorm, where some of my friends threw me in the shower, but Noel and some friends got to celebrate by going downtown to have a Pepsi. Lucky him!!