Meadowses share spice of life, together
Valentine’s Day is more than just a holiday to David and Marty Meadows. On Friday the happy couple will celebrate 27 years of marriage. MARTY retired from Walmart after 16 years and keeps herself busy with Girl Scouts and helping at Wesley United Methodist Church. They are both Girl Scout volunteers.
Their love story began during the late ’80s in Wichita. Marty was a supervisor at a store and David’s mother worked there. He would come into the store to visit his mother and see Marty. David was born in Iola but moved around a lot with his family growing up. After an accident in Montana he moved back to Kansas.
“He kept saying he was going to marry me,” Marty said with a chuckle. “And I kept saying I wasn’t ever going to get married again.”
Persistence paid off. David won her over. They dated for six months and then David popped the question at Christmas in 1986. The next year they married.
“We got married on Valentine’s Day at his mother’s house and the Rev. Earl Bell married us,” Marty said. “We thought it would be fun to get married on that day and no one would forget it.”
The marriage brought together their two families each having two children already. Their son passed away six years ago.
The Meadows said they don’t do anything “too special” on their anniversary. They enjoy going out to dinner together. This year they plan to “stay local” and eat at B&B Cafe.
“David is my right arm,” Marty said. “He helps me with everything.”
She has been a part of Girl Scouts for 30 years. She was a Girl Scout. So were her daughters. Now her granddaughters are involved.
On Wednesday nights Marty helps cook dinner for the youth group at Wesley United Methodist Church. She is also apart of a women’s group at the church.
“We’ve been at Wesley for at least 15 years,” she said. “We both really enjoy the congregation.”
When the two aren’t volunteering they covet their free time.
“I like to bowl,” David said.
Marty said she has taken up crocheting.
On their first anniversary the couple took a trip to Hawaii. David noted they also have visited the Bahamas, Cozumel and went to Disneyland with their grandchildren. They are proud grandparents of 12 grandchildren and one great-grandson.
David and Marty give credit to God for their successful marriage.
“I think having our religious beliefs and having God in our lives is what makes it work,” she said. “Also being very close to our kids.”
Libertys find love at both ends of spectrum
Angel and Sheldon Liberty would be the first to admit some miracles were in order to get them where they are today.
This Valentine’s Day they will celebrate their 16th wedding anniversary.
“He’s the romantic one,” she said of the auspicious anniversary date. Their first date, after all, was on New Year’s Eve.
Neither seemed destined for a long-term relationship.
Angel left home at the precious age of 16, on the outs with her mother and with no male role model left in her life.
“Some of the police officers today look at me and are so surprised — relieved — of where I am,” Angel said. “They really took me under their wings. Not that I was ever in trouble with the law, but I sure was rowdy — and headstrong.”
Living on her own, Angel quit high school in 1991, one semester before graduation.
“I needed to make money,” she said, and held two jobs in the fast food industry.
When she took the GED to earn high school credit, she graduated with top scores, earning her a scholarship to Allen Community College.
“It was the highest score in 10 years,” she said.
It would be until she was a divorced mother that she would use the scholarship, eventually earning an associate degree in business administration.
“I always did things the hard way. It wasn’t until I was pregnant that I realized I needed my mother. Now, we talk every day.” Angel’s mother is Pat Anderson who ran Pat’s Upholstery on the east side of the Iola square for many years.
WHILE ANGEL seemed mature beyond her years, Sheldon was on the opposite end of the spectrum.
“It took me a while to grow up,” he said.
The son of a preacher, Sheldon grew up in the Assembly of God Church where his father, Rod Liberty and his wife, Shirley, was pastor.
Perhaps it was because he grew up on the straight and narrow, he was bound to stray.
“I’m very much a prodigal son. I went away from my faith, my family, but then I came back.” Today, Angel and Sheldon are very involved with the Assembly of God church.
The two met while working as bartenders.
“We had a whole different lifestyle back then,” he said.
At the time, Angel was married, and Sheldon, in fact, was a close friend to her husband.
After six years, Angel’s marriage fell apart. By then, Sheldon had left bartending after three years and was working as a long-distance truck driver.
When the two met up, “it went quickly from Sheldon being a shoulder to cry on to loving him,” Angel said.
By then, Angel had a daughter, Heaven, 3, from her first marriage. After a little more than a year of dating, they married.
What drew the couple together initially, remains the same today.
“There are two keys to a good marriage,” Sheldon said. “Put God in your life, and make time for each other.”
The couple also look at life from the same vantage. Their needs are modest. They share one truck between them. Their home on South First Street is in a quiet, unassuming neighborhood. Their big screen TV is 10 years old.
But behind this humble exterior, lives a couple who travels the world and has a dream of someday permanently escaping to a tropical climate.
“Instead of working for stuff, we work for time together,” said Sheldon. They own a timeshare in a condominium that allows them to travel most anywhere in the world.
They prefer a location with a beach. She, for the relaxation. He, for the chance to fraternize with the sea life.
“This man’s idea of a vacation is to turn himself into fish bait,” Angel said, referring to a recent adventure in the Farallon Islands off the coast of San Francisco where Sheldon’s goal was to swim with great white sharks. It didn’t happen, but Angel will see that it does some day, she said.
“We’ve always made our vacations a priority,” she said.
“It’s helped make our marriage better,” he said. “Too many people wait until they retire to have adventures. We don’t want to wait.”
In addition to enjoying their free time together, they also have rewarding careers which affords them distance as well as respect for each other.
Sheldon, 42, has been with Sonic Equipment since 2005. He now works as a coordinator for the installation of digital equipment in movie theaters.
“In two years’ time, there will be no more 35 millimeter films made,” he said, explaining the push for the digital conversion. “Movie theaters will have to either update or close.”
Angel, 41, for the last five years has worked from home as a donor services agent for ACD Connect, which provides services for the Wounded Warriors project. The service works primarily with U.S. veterans from the terrorist bombings of Sept. 11, 2011, to current day.
“Today’s veterans are different,” Angel said. “They survive, but come home with with more serious injuries, including post traumatic stress disorders. Our Veterans Affairs can’t meet all their needs. We help fill in the gaps.”
Such things include fundraisers, managing donations and providing programs for veterans.
AS FOR Friday’s anniversary, Angel quickly gives Sheldon the credit for selecting the romantic holiday for their wedding day.
“That’s his nature,” Angel said. “He cares how others think.
“I know I’m a very strong woman and feel I don’t ‘need’ Sheldon. But I love him, I adore him, I want him with me until the rest of my life.”
A rose, surely, by any other name.
