By Terri Jo Ryan

Tribune-Herald staff writer

Valentine’s Day has not been a particularly notorious date in Waco’s colorful past. But, as the lovers below will attest, it is the most significant one when it comes to the affairs of the heart.

Here are a handful of real-life love stories that have stood the test of time.

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If her beloved Truman were still walking the earth, Evelyn Kirk of Waco would be celebrating their 61st wedding anniversary with him today. The retired teacher, 81, is warming herself with the memories of their wedding on Valentine’s Day 1948.

They met in the summer of 1946, as freshmen at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene. Truman Kirk was a customer of the campus bookstore where Evelyn Ross worked.

Her boss disapproved of guys hanging around the store and wasting employees’ time, so Kirk had to be inventive to spend any time with her. Because Evelyn was occupied at the postal window, he figured out she was available for note-passing. To this day, Kirk said, she has a box filled with his mushy musings.

Her husband, a naval veteran of World War II, died of cancer in 1996 at 71. Their marriage of almost a half century produced four children.

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Richard Sehon, 67, and his wife of 42 years, Margaret Visicek Sehon, 70, count their lucky stars that they met. For each almost didn’t go to the dance hall in Buckholts in Milam County that magical Saturday night in 1965.

“I was on orders for Vietnam,” Richard recalled, “but my brother was on leave from the Navy, and I hadn’t seen him in three years.”

His brother, Louis, persuaded him to go to the dance. And once Richard saw Margaret Visicek walk in, he recalled, “Well, lookee there, I thought.”

Margaret, who was less than enthusiastic about another dateless Saturday night herself, recalled being smitten with the stranger’s blond locks and blue eyes, and danced with him a few times. But when he pressed to drive her home, she kept telling him it was too far — about 25 miles — to her folks’ place.

He persisted, so Margaret asked a friend to drive her new ’65 Pontiac LeMans home for her so she could take him up on the offer.

Their first date was a church picnic the next day, and then he had to report for duty in Minnesota before shipping out to Vietnam. She moved to Dallas to work as a key punch operator.

But they corresponded frequently. Knowing he had a sweetheart in Texas, he said, made the separation bearable. Every leave was spent in Bell County with her and their large families.

By spring 1966, the couple was engaged, and they married almost a year later, after his discharge.

Except for the first nine months of their marriage, when they lived near his two sisters in Minnesota, they have always lived in Central Texas. Richard and Margaret Sehon of Robinson have three sons and two daughters.

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Lou and Larry McDonald, 60, of Gatesville, weren’t merely high school sweethearts — they started courting in the third grade at North Waco Elementary School, at age 8. He gave her a necklace that Valentine’s Day 1956 when they decided to “go steady.”

They dated all through their school years: Picnics and birthday parties and family reunions at Cameron Park, and hikes to Lovers’ Leap and Emmons Cliff.

He was an athlete, and she was a majorette in the band, so they would meet on Friday nights at the school gym for sock hops after the games. They still like to go to the Shrine dances at Karem Temple.

They married on Jan. 25, 1969, and have two children.

“We’ve always told people that instead of marrying somebody else first, then marrying our high school sweetheart later, we just did it right the first time,” Linda Lou said.

tjryan@wacotrib.com

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