In September of 1961 Barbara Corrington and I were reunited on a train bound for Fort Worth, Texas and Southwestern Baptist Seminary. We both had stayed in Barnard Hall, the women’s dormitory, while attending Mission Conferences and were not looking forward to living there. I knew there usually were not many girls right out of college (in fact, I remembered seeing only older women.) Then there was the stigma of being a Barnard Hall girl. I had heard the stories about the boys from Fort Worth Hall (Men’s dorm) coming over to check out the new crop of girls only to find a crop failure.
Barnard Hall was even worse than I had remembered it. When we walked into our room the first night, we literally fell over one of the beds. We were moved to a larger room, but it was no less dreary than the first. George Watanabe, a college classmate assumed the responsibility of seeing that we met the “right” people. Since there were several other girls right out of college, not to mention the girls at TCU, we had more competition than we had expected,
I had been rather overweight in college and discovered there were two kinds of boys there-the ones I didn’t want to date and the ones who didn’t want to date me. Having lost a lot of weight between college and seminary, I had more of a choice and dated more. This was before the days of Naylor Student Center and Doris Norton, so those who didn’t date had almost no social life.
Early in the year at a Mission Fellowship social, I discovered one Milton Lites. At the time he was wearing jeans, which I detest, and a big Western hat, and was singing with a “western” group. (quartet.) In spite of all of this I was very impressed. When I asked George about him, he only said “Lites doesn’t have it.” Every day I am more thankful that I had never had much respect for Watanabe’s opinions.
If I were completely honest, I might have to admit that I chased Milton until he caught me. We chatted from time to time on the campus but didn’t really meet until about a month later when he asked me to sing in an ensemble which he was directing for a play. Our first date was for a football game on October 16.
I was not a good student in Seminary before I met Milton, but after we started dting I found it even more difficult to read six Study Course books, draw floor plans for Beginner Departments and memorize the Kings of Israel very night. I had laughed many times about people in college who would not even date a person who was not a mission volunteer. Their opinion became more apparent to me as I became more deeply involved with Milton. I knew he was dedicated to doing God’s will whatever it was, but had never felt any definite leading to do mission work. I prayerfully explored every thing he said or did related to missions. He was active in Mission Fellowship and had been very impressed by the work Rennie Sanderson was doing in music in Japan.
I had moved my church membership from Poly Baptist Church to Eagle Mountain Church where Milton was serving as Music Director. On the Sunday after Thanksgiving we had a deputation team from Mission Fellowship at Seminary to conduct the morning service. I had prayed many times for God to show me if Milton were not the right one, but not until that day was I able to say and me “If he is not a part of your plan for my life, today will be the last time I will date him.” My answer came as clearly as though God had spoken to me. And later in the day when Milton asked me to be his wife I could say “yes” with the assurance that this was a part of God’s plan.
There were several other couples on campus who also had brief courtships and made engagement announcements about the time we made ours. Mrs. Martha Washington Allen, our Resident Counselor and Dean of Women at Seminary was quite upset about the turn of events, and when I showed my ring to her she launched into a sermon on the subject. She ended it by asking me “My Dear, have you prayed about it?” I replied, “Yes, Ma’am, twenty-four years.” This little exchange has become a legend in Barnard Hall and is recounted each Christmas as diamonds begin to flash in the eyes of its residents.