They were teenagers.
She was visiting her brother and his wife in Tampa, and she took the streetcar over to the Sulphur Springs swimming pool.
He was at the pool to relax.
He spotted her.
(B.C. Manion/Staff Photo)
“He came over and started talking to me, and he was cute, so I talked back with him,” said Nellie Bailey, of Lutz.
“I was 16,” said Nellie, now 87.
“I was 17,” said Gains Hugh Bailey Sr., now 88.
“That day we went to Whitehead’s Drugstore, got a hamburger and went to a movie,” Hugh said.
They don’t remember what movie they saw.
“I was looking at her, not the movie,” Hugh said.
“We dated every night the whole summer,” Nellie said. “We went to the beaches. We bowled and we ate out, and we went to movies, and we went over to the park and kissed under the trees.”
But, then she had to return to North Carolina to finish high school. He had to finish high school, too.
“We wrote about once every two weeks. We continued on with our normal lives, going to school, and dating other boys and girls. But, we didn’t forget each other. We kept writing,” Nellie said.
Then, she moved to Tampa with her family in January of 1946.
“We renewed our dating, dating every night,” Nellie said.
Then he was drafted.
(Photos courtesy of Janice Kurtz)
“He asked me to marry him and go with him. I said, ‘OK, let’s go,” Nellie said.
They married on March 31, 1946.
“Our first stop was Amarillo, Texas. The next stop was San Antonio, Texas. The third stop was West Palm Beach. I followed him wherever he was sent.
“He was honorably discharged in February 1947,” Nellie said.
“We had our first anniversary in Tampa, March 31, and our daughter was born then. Right on the day.”
Their second child, a son, also was born on their anniversary in 1951.
The couple went on to have a total of four children: Donna, Gains Jr., James Douglas and Janice Nell. The couple also has six grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
This past weekend, they celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary at a party with about two dozen family members.
Even after seven decades, the romance is alive.
Nellie said she wrote Hugh a love letter years ago. “He reads it every night,” she said.
And, she still recalls every word of a song called “You Belong to My Heart” — their song when they were dating.
“He tells me every day, ‘I love you more than anything in the world.’ And, I tell him the same thing, every day,” Nellie said.
“We always kiss goodbye when he goes out the door and kiss when he comes in,” she said.
“We love each other very much. If we have a spat or disagreement, we can’t stay mad, or go to bed mad, because we won’t be able to sleep if we do.
“I’m miserable as soon as we have cross words and he is, too, so the sooner we make up, the happier we are,” Nellie said.
“We just can’t stay angry. I’ll try to see his side and he’ll try to see my side, and we kind of communicate on it and settle it – to both of our satisfactions, to where we’re both all right with it,” Nellie said.
“Whatever is important to him, is important to me. And, that’s the same way he feels,” she said.
“If it isn’t, I make it important,” Hugh said.
For instance, he said he learned to fish after she gave him a rod and reel.
“I fished when I was a child and he didn’t, so I bought him a rod and a reel as an anniversary present,” Nellie said.
“Our neighbor was a fisherman, and he started taking me fishing,” Hugh said.
For her part, Nellie expanded her musical tastes.
“He likes country music, and I never did like country music,” she said. “I like country music now.”
Hugh was always a good provider, Nellie said.
“We took vacations every year with the children, to the beaches, and camping and fishing. We enjoyed them so much. We got a boat, and he (Hugh) took them (water) skiing. We’d swim at the beach. We took them fishing,” Nellie said.
“We’ve traveled all over the United States, from Maine to San Francisco. We took the whole family, the children and grandchildren, to Yellowstone,” Hugh added.
Having fun with each other, with their friends and with their family, has always been important to both of them.
“We’ve always had fun. You just can’t have a good marriage without some fun in it,” Nellie said.
They also share many fond memories of times they’ve shared together.
When they lived in San Antonio, they lived near the Alamo.
“Bands would be down there playing every night. Our windows would be open, and we could hear that soft romantic music,” Nellie said. “They had a watermelon hut there. They served nothing but watermelon down by the water, so we’d have watermelon every night.”
Hugh thinks Nellie saved his life.
“I went into Afib and my heart was beating 160 beats a minute, and they took me to Tampa General,” Hugh said.
He spent seven days in intensive care, with Nellie at his side.
“He was heavily sedated,” Nellie said. “They would say: ‘He might can hear you.’
“I’d say, ‘Hugh can you hear me? Squeeze my hand.’ He’d squeeze my hand,” Nellie said.
When they were young, Nellie said, she recalls imagining Hugh the way he looks today.
“That’s what I always wanted, for us to grow old together,” she said. “We’re actually still in love. It’s a much deeper love now.”
Hugh agreed: “She’s still my sweetheart.”
Published April 6, 2016
