Loose Diamond Engagement Article:
Arthur and Nancy

  Loose diamonds, diamond engagement rings, and elaborate weddings are the norm for most young couples getting engaged these days. Read on about a young couple to whom these things were as foreign as the places visited by the young soldiers who fought our wars.

  It was August 1945, and World War II was over. Nancy was 14 years old and remembers joining in the celebration parade in Pine Lake, Georgia. She rode in one of the cars in the caravan that moved through the streets with horns blowing and people cheering. The celebration was duplicated in hundreds of small towns across the United States. Happy days were surely coming again.

  In Atlanta a 17-year-old young man was growing restless. Arthur had gotten behind in school and didn’t have much hope or desire for graduating with his class. The news and talk of the war for the past four years had invited his mind to wander off to far away places. If a family had a member serving in the military they would place a symbolic star or flag decal in the front window of their home. His mother had four such decals in her front window. Two natural sons and two step-sons were all overseas at the same time in either Europe or the Pacific. For four years she lived every day in fear that a military vehicle would pull up at her house with terrible news. And now, by the grace of God, her four sons were all safely returning home.

  Arthur was happy for his older brothers but was ready for adventures of his own. He waited until February of 1946 before informing his teachers and his mother of his plans to join the Army Air Corps. His mother’s only consolation was that it was now peace time. The veterans that had returned from World War II had hit the ground running. They had enrolled in colleges, were getting married, and building homes. The Country was on the mend, and the world was at peace. It was only under these circumstances that Arthur’s mother could bring herself to sign for and release her under-aged son to enlist in the military for three years.

  Battling, he was sure, the worst homesickness ever experienced by any soldier, Arthur visited for real those far away places, including Hawaii, the Philippines, and Guam, where he was stationed for two of the three years. But at the end of his three-year stint he had to admit there was no place like home. In February 1949 Sergeant Couch, the man, came home. There wasn’t much left of the wistful young boy who had walked out of class and left home three years earlier.

  The Country was still booming, jobs were plentiful, and the man had a plan. He bought a 1946 Ford, enrolled in the Atlanta Automotive Trade Institute, and listened to his younger brother talk about a girl he knew from school named Nancy.

  It was March of 1949, and Nancy was set to graduate in January of 1950. Nancy had a guy friend at school whose older brother had just come home from the military. That older brother drove his 1946 Ford to Nancy’s house, and she hopped into the front seat for a drive around town. That night he called her, and from then on they saw each other every day. Arthur would drop by her school in the afternoons to pick her up. After cruising around town (their primary form of courting) he would drive her home. It wasn’t long before she was wearing his army ID bracelet bearing the numbers she recites fifty-five years later—14-14-44-60.

  Nancy graduated in January 1950. Her mother had made her a white satin gown, and Arthur escorted her to the graduation ball held at the Henry Grady Hotel, complete with a live band. They danced the night away and officially fell in love. In February their conversations turned to marriage, loose diamonds and diamond engagement rings. Nancy indicated a wedding ring set she liked, and Arthur went back and made the purchase. Not much more than diamond chips the set sold for $169.00, and he set up a payment plan for $1.25 per week. In March Arthur presented the diamond engagement ring to her on one of their many driving dates. He kept the wedding ring for another day. Nancy’s father said okay, but he did not want to see the other ring on her finger any time soon.

  Of course four months later, in June 1950, the other ring was on her finger. She had bought a knee-length, white satin dress with a tight waist and a full skirt. She wore a bonnet that matched the dress. On the morning of their wedding day Arthur had a dozen roses delivered to her house which (after she recovered from the shock) she took to the ceremony. Their parents, sisters, and his younger brother gathered at the minister’s house for the ceremony. Oh, that such a precious picture could have been taken—but such things were not considered important in those days. The vows were spoken, and the couple headed to their newly rented apartment with the twin beds, stopping for a quart of milk along the way.

  Days turned into decades, and Arthur’s two daughters convinced him that mom needed a “real” diamond engagement ring. So for Christmas of 1989 Arthur presented Nancy with a gorgeous, unblemished, one-carat-plus diamond engagement ring. Nancy adores the new ring. Nevertheless, she keeps the tiny engagement/wedding ring set from 1950 tucked away in her jewelry box, taking it out occasionally and wiping it clean with her tears. When she looks at it she can remember a simpler time when all dreams were of perfection and a tiny diamond ring could tell a mighty story.