On September 4, 1976, Joanna Wong became Joanna Jones, and I became the happiest man on the planet – for over 44 years until her passing on February 14, 2021. Ten days ago – Friday, September 4 – was our 50th anniversary. Alison and Travis asked me where their mom would want to go on our 50th anniversary. Joanna usually chose to celebrate our anniversaries and her birthdays at either Ruth’s Chris Steak House or Two Forks. Ruth’s Chris is the site of my strongest memories of those anniversary dinners, so our kids took me to Ruth’s Chris to celebrate that 50th anniversary, and we spent a wonderful evening reminiscing about their mom – and the love of my life – and thumbing through our wedding album.
The beautiful needlepoint shown here, displaying the date of our marriage, was a wedding gift from Susie Wood, wife of my OBU roommate, Cary Wood. We attended their wedding in 1974, and they attended ours in 1976. After we built our current house in 2008, Joanna chose to display this needlepoint in a niche in the rotunda of our entryway for anyone to see upon first entering our house. It’s a beautiful reminder of a wonderful day.
In observance of our 50th anniversary, I’ve chosen to pay tribute to Joanna and our life together by sharing a few selected photos from 1976, especially from our wedding, and from every 10th year after that, on through our 40th anniversary year, 2016.
We took a trip to celebrate every 10th anniversary: (1) to California for our 10th in 1986, with our children, who were very young then, and my parents; (2) to San Francisco for our 20th in 1996, just the two of us this time, a trip with which I completely surprised her; (3) to San Antonio for our 30th in 2006, this time with our kids; and (4) for our 40th, two trips – one on our anniversary to Shawnee, where we worshipped at University Baptist Church, where we said our vows 40 years earlier to the day, and – later that month – a wonderful trip through the New England states, a trip I had wanted to take ever since we got married.
So please enjoy this limited look at the wonderful life that Joanna and I spent together. She is forever the love of my life, and I continue to miss her with every breath I take. Besides that, I still talk to her all the time . . . whether or not she hears me, it gives me peace to remind me of the wonderful woman who chose to spend her life with me. What a blessing!
1976
In March 1976, Joanna’s oldest sister, Rossana, visited Joanna at her dorm at OBU. On my 25th birthday, Joanna baked and decorated a cake, and we celebrated with Rossana. In May, my parents and I joined in celebrating Joanna’s graduation from OBU.
During the summer of 1976, Joanna returned to Hong Kong, where she and her mom made preparations for our wedding. On September 4, 1976, Joanna and I were married at University Baptist Church, Shawnee, OK, across the street from the OBU campus. This church and its pastor, Jerry Barnes, had been instrumental in helping me to find my way through a very difficult faith struggle, beginning in the fall of 1970 when I was a sophomore and continuing past my graduation in 1973. My daddy, Jase Jones, performed the ceremony, and Jerry read scripture. Jerry and I remained close friends until his passing in January 2017. I attended his funeral in Miami, OK.
Family and numerous friends celebrated with us at our wedding. My Best Man was Bob Morris, and my Groomsman was Peter Cheung. Joanna’s Maid of Honor was Sumiko Ushiban, and her Bridesmaid was Lam Yuk Ling. My Aunt Beulah Geren, Daddy’s sister, played the organ. Eunice Short, who – in September 1972 – had picked up Joanna at the airport in Oklahoma City and driven her to OBU for the first time, gave us our wedding reception.
Eunice was OBU’s liaison to international students. Her sister, Jaxie, missionary to Hong Kong who had been home on furlough during the 1972-73 school year and served as OBU’s missionary-in-residence, played a key role in our lives, as she is the one who judged me the winner of the Cantonese-speaking contest that culminated in the induction of several non-Chinese students, for the first time ever, into the OBU Chinese Student Association.
After the wedding and reception at the church, Mother and Daddy hosted a second reception, this one for family and out-of-town guests, in their suite at the Holiday Inn. My sister’s husband, Palmer McCown, who had sung in our wedding, played “bartender” for the reception at the hotel
The next morning, Joanna and I, and my parents, gathered with Joanna’s family at the airport in Oklahoma City as they prepared to return home.
Joanna and I spent our first Christmas as a married couple with my parents at their home in Marble Falls, TX. Isn’t she stunningly beautiful?
1986
Our first four-person family photo, followed by May in New Mexico
In April 1986, we arranged for our first professional family photo with Travis, who had been born in November 1985. In May, we took a little trip down to New Mexico, including Taos Pueblo and Santa Fe. Throughout our marriage, this was one of our favorite places to visit, which we did numerous times.
September – our 10th-anniversary trip to California
In September, we celebrated our 10th anniversary by taking our kids to California. Alison and Travis were just a few months short of their 5th and 1st birthdays, respectively. We met my parents out there, went to LA, and then drove up coastal Highway 1 to San Francisco.
On the night before our anniversary, Joanna and I attended a taping of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in Burbank, while Mother and Daddy kept the kids in their motel room. Johnny’s guests that night were humor columnist Lewis Grizzard and jazz vocalist George Benson, but the highlight was Art Fern’s Teatime Movie – which was a sketch of which I had seen him do many versions on TV over the years. But this time was different. It ended prematurely after Johnny’s mustache kept slipping off and Johnny couldn’t stop laughing. He finally said, “the hell with it,” and they went to a commercial break, during which director Freddy DeCordova tried to convince Johnny to re-start the Art Fern sketch from scratch, but Johnny was adamant that he was going to move on with the rest of the show. Johnny got his way, and we found out who was really in charge – and it was NOT the director, Freddy DeCordova!
We had an especially memorable time taking the kids to Disneyland.
1996
Family – April in our nation’s capital, and December at Stephanie’s wedding
In April 1996, Joanna’s work as a financial analyst with Mobil Oil took her to the headquarters in Fairfax, VA, just outside Washington, DC, for a couple of weeks. So the kids and I flew up there and spent Easter weekend sightseeing with her.
We had a surprise in store for us. As we walked down the hill from the Washington Monument, we noticed a crowd gathering. A helicopter had landed on a helipad. In a few minutes, here came a limousine. It stopped, and out stepped . . . President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown had died, days earlier, when the plane carrying him and others on a trade mission crashed into a mountain in Croatia. The Clintons were to be flown by helicopter to Andrews Air Force Base, where they would board Air Force One for the flight to Dover, Delaware, to meet and honor the remains of Secretary Brown. For me, this was the sixth president or former president I had seen in person.
That December, we would all join the rest of our family at the wedding of my niece, Stephanie McCown, to Jim Markgraf.
September – our 20th-anniversary trip to San Francisco
In late August, the kids and I surprised Joanna with the news that I had arranged for a 20th-anniversary trip – for just the two of us – to San Francisco. It’s one of maybe three times in the 48 years we were together (from the time of our first date) that I was able to surprise her. I do NOT have a poker face, but somehow I pulled this off, with the assistance of Alison and Travis. I had even arranged with the parents of the kids’ best friends to keep them while we were gone.
There was one glitch, however, in my planning. I arranged the trip through a travel agency, which gave me a brochure of hotels in the area. I picked out a hotel that advertised as being “near Fisherman’s Wharf.” Our flight arrived in San Francisco a little after midnight. We got our rental car and headed down toward Fisherman’s Wharf. I drove up and down the street and didn’t find our hotel. Finally, I stopped and used a pay phone (remember those?) to call the hotel and ask for directions. To my shock and dismay, I discovered that there is a Fisherman’s Wharf in Monterrey, about an hour-and-a-half south of San Francisco. The travel agent should have caught that, but she didn’t. By this time, it was pushing 2 a.m., but fortunately, we were able to find a vacancy in a hotel near the San Francisco Fisherman’s Wharf. After getting a good night’s sleep, I called the travel agent and demanded a refund on the hotel fee.
The rest of the weekend, though, was wonderful. We went to Ghirardelli’s and enjoyed some chocolate treats, took the boat tour around Alcatraz, ate a lot of luscious seafood (we especially enjoyed eating clam chowder out of a sourdough “bowl”), drove on the crookedest street, rode on a cable car, enjoyed a Sunday champagne brunch at the Cliff House (except neither one of us liked the taste of wine, etc. – we both took one sip of champagne, and that was all we could stand) and generally had a great time celebrating our 20th anniversary together.
2006
May means Mother’s Day and Australia
In May 2006, our family celebrated Joanna on Mother’s Day, with one significant change from past years – Alison and Adam had married in August 2005, and Adam was now celebrating holidays with us as officially a member of our family. He had come over to our house on March 14, 2005 – which, although he didn’t realize it, happened to be my birthday – to tell Joanna and me that he planned to ask Alison to marry him, and to ask for our blessing. By that time, we had come to know Adam well, and I knew Joanna’s answer was the same as mine, so I simply got out of my chair, went over, extended my hand, and said, “Welcome to our family.” A few days later, Alison called us from Loveland, Colorado, where she and Adam had gone for Spring Break (Alison was in her first year of teaching 1st grade at Gulledge Elementary School in Plano), to tell us, “We’re engaged!”
So here we were on Mother’s Day 2006, including the newest member of our family in our celebration.
Later that month, Joanna went to Australia on a work assignment for ExxonMobil and came back with loads of photos from her sightseeing there.
September – our 30th-anniversary trip to San Antonio
In September, we took our family to San Antonio to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. We had a wonderful time there, doing all the touristy things – the Riverwalk, the Alamo, Sea World, and so forth. My cousin, Lawana Geren, who lives in San Antonio, joined us for dinner one evening. One of my favorite pictures came from that celebration, as Joanna leaned over and planted a big kiss on my cheek. It was a great way to celebrate 30 wonderful years of marriage!
On November 8, 1976, just over two months after our wedding, Joanna started work with Mobil Oil in Oklahoma City as an accountant and financial analyst. This turned out to be one of the great blessings of our marriage. Joanna spent over 34 years with Mobil/ExxonMobil before taking early retirement in March 2011 because of her kidney disease. In 1977, Mobil moved us to Denver, where we spent 10 wonderful years, during which Alison and Travis were born. In 1987, Mobil moved us again, this time to the Dallas area. Years later, Mobil would merge with Exxon and become ExxonMobil. Joanna survived all of the office moves, layoffs, downsizing, etc. Mobil/ExxonMobil knew they had a valuable employee.
In November 2006, ExxonMobil recognized and honored Joanna’s 30 years of service with a beautiful dinner, where family and friends gathered to show Joanna just how much WE loved and treasured her. It was a very special evening.
2016
Family Gatherings
On Easter Sunday 2016, our family gathered with Adam’s family for the annual Easter egg hunt & pot luck at the home of Adam’s aunt, Lynn Brock. Lynn (sister of Adam’s dad, Mike) and her husband, Roy (who passed away in 2011), had always been extremely gracious to Joanna and me. We had come to love Adam’s family and always looked forward to gathering with them every Easter.
On Father’s Day, we gathered at one of my favorite restaurants to celebrate the three fathers among us – yours truly, Travis, and Adam – as well as our fathers before us.
In early October, Joanna traveled to Hong Kong to celebrate her mom’s birthday with her family. Later that month, Joanna and I drove to Austin for the memorial service celebrating the life of my Aunt Betsy Head, one of Mother’s sisters.
Finally, we celebrated Christmas at our home in Allen, and took a “selfie” of Joanna and me with our kids and grandkids, a picture that will always be a special memory for all of us.
June trip to North Carolina
In June, Joanna and I drove to North Carolina for the 2016 General Assembly of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in Greensboro. One evening, we drove to nearby Winston-Salem to have dinner with Joe and Martha Rust. Joe had been music minister at my church in Kansas City, MO, when I was growing up, and is a major influence in my life. He and Martha are among my dearest lifelong friends. You might say that Joe is as responsible as anyone for my marriage to Joanna, because he was THE influence in my choosing OBU!
After the conference was over, we drove to Asheville, where we had lunch at the home of Ken and Nancy Sehested. I had long admired Ken and Nancy from afar for their ministries, their courage, and their integrity – Ken for his efforts in founding the Baptist Peace Fellowship and Nancy for pioneering the cause of equality of Baptist women in ministry. I had known Nancy’s dad, Brownlow Hastings, when I was a kid in the late 1950s & early 1960s, because he was a close friend and colleague of my dad, Jase Jones. In 2012, after finishing another conference in North Carolina, I had driven to Asheville to worship with Ken, Nancy, and their Circle of Mercy congregation, heard Nancy preach, then stayed the night in their home and had a wonderful evening of fellowship with them. So this trip in 2016 gave me the opportunity to introduce them to Joanna. These two gracious friends invited us to their home for lunch, and we had a beautiful visit with them.
On our way home from North Carolina, Joanna and I made stops in Nashville, at the Grand Ole Opry, and Memphis, at the Memphis Zoo.
September – Spending our 40th anniversary in Shawnee
Our 40th anniversary, September 4, 2016, happened to fall on a Sunday. Earlier that week, I suggested to Joanna that we drive up to Shawnee and worship at University Baptist Church, where we said our vows 40 years earlier to the day. The pastor was Steve Dominy, whom I had gotten to know in Texas a few years earlier. I called Steve on Friday to tell him we would be visiting that Sunday. It was a very special time, being back in that church, looking around and remembering our special day there 40 years earlier. After the service, Steve took our picture, standing on the chancel where Daddy had married us, leading us in our vows as we pledged our love and commitment to each other.
Then we met my best friend of over 40 years, Bob Morris, and his wife, Emily, who lived in Oklahoma City, for lunch. Bob had been Best Man in our wedding. We also drove around Shawnee, with Bob and Emily, remembering some of the places that had been special to us back then. We even drove over to the old Southwestern Bell operators building, where Bob and I first met in March 1974, training together as telephone operators, and the parking lot where we would stand – after getting off work from our 1 p.m.-10 p.m. shift – for a couple of hours every night, talking politics, especially Watergate. We had bonded after discovering that we had both voted for George McGovern in 1972. Our friendship was cemented by those late night political discussions in the Southwestern Bell parking lot.
After saying goodbye to Bob and Emily, Joanna and I walked around the OBU campus, where we had met, gotten to know each other, and fallen in love. A special place of memories was the University Center, where Joanna and I had started meeting regularly in October 1972, 3 months before we started dating, for her to teach me Cantonese. That year, the Chinese Student Association had voted, for the first time, to pledge some non-Chinese students. I had been very close to the Chinese community at OBU since early in my freshman year, so I was one of the non-Chinese students they invited to pledge. The initiation challenge was to learn to speak Cantonese. With Joanna as my teacher, I wound up winning the Cantonese-speaking contest. It was at the party celebrating our induction that I realized how much I enjoyed being with Joanna. A few days later, I asked her to go to an OBU basketball game as my date, and we were soon going together regularly. So it was a wonderful 40th-anniversary afternoon spent reminiscing.
Later in September – Our 40th-anniversary trip through New England
Later that month, Joanna and I took the trip I had wanted to take ever since we were married – driving through the New England states. It was the perfect time to do it, just as the leaves were beginning to turn to their brilliant fall colors. So, to celebrate our 40th anniversary, we flew to Portland, Maine, rented a car, and spent about a week traveling through New England. Beginning with lobster in Maine, we ate a lot of luscious seafood! This included a lobster roll at Fenway Park, where we saw the Yankees and Red Sox stage an epic battle, in which the legendary David Ortiz – known as “Big Papi” – hit one of his last home runs in Fenway, where he had led the Red Sox to World Series championships in 2004, 2007, & 2013 (garnering World Series MVP honors that time), before retiring from baseball.
That game featured what the next day’s Boston newspapers called the greatest 9th-inning comeback by the Red Sox in the history of their storied rivalry with the Yankees. Trailing 5-2, going into the bottom of the 9th, the Red Sox scored 5 runs, ending in a walk-off 3-run homer by Hanley Ramirez with two out to beat the Yankees, 7-5. Travis was watching the game on TV back home in Texas. He texted me, “Wow! Y’all just saw a great finish!”
I had to tell him, “No, we didn’t.” I’ve seen a lot of baseball games over the years, and I NEVER leave a game early. However, this time I made an exception. A hotel shuttle had brought us to Fenway but would not be available for the ride back. We were in a town we didn’t know, and there would be a crush of fans on the street after the game, so getting a cab might not be very easy. Joanna had started dialysis earlier that year, and it’s an all-night task, which she usually started early in the evening when we were at home. So I was concerned about getting her back to the hotel safely to start her dialysis. Therefore, in the top of the 9th inning, I told Joanna that we had better leave immediately so we could beat the crowd out of the ballpark. She had not asked me to do this; it was entirely on my own initiative, because our safety – and her health – were a much bigger priority for me than seeing the end of a ballgame. So we left.
On the cab ride back to the hotel, I was following the game on my MLB app, begging, “Please don’t come back and win, Red Sox!” There was no way I wanted them to have a great comeback that I MISSSED! It was right after we got back into the hotel room that I saw the final result – an epic comeback win by the home team. It makes for a great story, doesn’t it – the greatest ending that we never saw? Oh well, I’ve never regretted my decision to leave. I did what was right for the sake of the love of my life, and I would do it again every time.
The next morning, in Providence, Rhode Island, we walked through The First Baptist Church in America, established by Roger Williams – founder of Providence – in 1638. I even stood behind the high-and-lifted-up pulpit (seriously, it’s WAY up high in that sanctuary) as Joanna snapped my picture. We also went through Rhode Island’s Capitol building.
That afternoon, we went back to Boston, to tour the JFK Library. Joanna knew that I would want to pore over every exhibit, and she was tired, so she chose to sit in the lobby while I went through the exhibits.
That evening, we drove to Lexington, MA, and had dinner at the home of our friends Daniel and Wendy Lee, where we met their son, Dan. I had lived on the same floor with Daniel when I was a freshman at OBU, and I remember his excited anticipation at the end of that school year when Wendy came from Hong Kong to join him at OBU.
While in Massachusetts, we also went to Plymouth and saw Plymouth Rock, where the Pilgrims landed in 1620, fleeing religious persecution in England.
We spent the last day of our trip in Washington, DC, where we took a tour of the U.S. Capitol and took pictures in front of the White House. The highlight of our time in DC, however, was our visit to the offices of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty on Capitol Hill. I had been a longtime supporter of the Baptist Joint Committee. Both the then-executive director, Brent Walker, and his predecessor, James Dunn, were good friends of mine.
Brent had announced he would be retiring at the end of 2016, so our visit was a good opportunity to see him in his office, where we had our picture taken with him, and treat him to lunch. We had lunch, at his suggestion, in the Senate cafeteria. Brent gave us a tour of the office, including the Thomas Jefferson Wall of Separation between church and state. Joanna and I had contributed to the building of the Baptist Joint Committee’s Religious Liberty Center several years earlier, so our names were among the many donors’ names appearing on this wall. Brent showed us our names and took our picture, standing in front of the Wall.
Those are just a few of the many places Joanna and I visited on our 40th-anniversary trip through New England. It was a wonderful way to celebrate 40 wonderful years of marriage.
Joanna brought unspeakable joy into my life
It has been my joy to share these photos and memories with you. Joanna and I had a wonderful life together, and this has been only the smallest of tributes I can pay – on this 50th wedding anniversary – to Joanna and all that she means to me. Our love is forever.