DEBORAH SHOUSE
Jim Smith recalls the first time he really “saw” Elaine.
“She was walking down the stairs at Kansas City Junior College,” he says. “I had met Elaine before, but I had never really noticed her. She looked so beautiful coming down those stairs, I decided to ask her out for a date.”
It was spring of 1959. Jim, then 19, asked Elaine Anderson, also 19, out.
“I’m busy,” she said.
He asked her out for another day. She was also busy then.
“Jim was good-looking,” Elaine says. “He seemed nice, but I was dating other people, and I was busy.”
Still, he persisted until she said yes to a Sunday evening date.
Jim wanted to arrive on time and make a good impression. He strode up to Elaine’s house, rang the doorbell and then looked at his watch. He was an hour early.
“I couldn’t believe he was so early,” Elaine recalls.
Back in those days, girls got dressed up for dates. Elaine had on her high heels and was hurrying into her new dress when she somehow stepped on the skirt and ripped it. Her mother had to do some quick mending.
Elaine was not swept away by her date with Jim.
“I didn’t like him arriving early. I didn’t like the movie he picked out. It was not love at first sight,” she says.
Still, she agreed to go out with him again.
They began seeing each other, and Elaine soon realized she enjoyed being around him.
“He’s a wonderful, caring person, lots of fun with a good sense of humor,” she says. “My feelings grew. All of a sudden, I realized I loved him.”
Jim, too, found himself growing deeper in love.
“She seemed to be occupying all my time and all my thoughts,” he says. “I thought, ‘This may be the girl I want to spend the rest of my life with.’ Sure enough, she was.”
On Christmas 1960, Jim gave Elaine a tea set and an engagement ring. They were married Dec. 16, 1961, on a day so icy they almost couldn’t get to the church. They headed out for a honeymoon in Hot Springs, Ark., on slick roads in a dense fog and ended up staying in Warrensburg instead.
Today the couple live in Independence. Jim works for Ball’s Price Chopper in shipping and receiving. Elaine is retired from working in a doctor’s office. They have two daughters and two grandchildren and enjoy walking, biking, eating out and spending time with their family.
“I feel the Lord led us to each other,” Jim says. “We feel so lucky and blessed to be together.”
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