A love that would not be denied

Valentine's Day is coming up this Saturday, and if you need a little inspiration to get in the spirit for the day which celebrates romantic love, I have a story for you. It's a true story -- a Love Story.

Jesse Ruiz serenades Gloria, his bride of 44 years. Van'Go'photo Being an MI (a move-in to the area), I don't know that much about folks' history, so I started nosing around by asking a simple question of friends whose roots here run deep: Who is a good example of long-lasting love? Several names were suggested, but I was intrigued by Julia Kaptchinskie's response, "When I think of SWEETHEARTS, I think of Gloria and Jesse Ruiz." Later that afternoon, at the BHS gym, I saw the Ruiz' daughter, Michelle Grissett at a ballgame, and asked if she thought her parents would allow me to interview them for a Valentine' s story. Michelle countered, "Oh, you know their story?…" After she briefly summed it up, I couldn't wait to hear it from Gloria and Jesse themselves. GLORIA 'N JESSE RUIZ -- A LOVE STORY

Gloria Ruiz prefaced their tale with, "Times were different back then…" and added that in the Hispanic culture, with its emphasis on respect, you did not go against your father's wishes. That said, she explained that as a teenager, she and her sisters were not allowed to date. "Dad was a good man, but very, VERY strict," she states. The oldest girl in a family of nine siblings, Gloria had honored this rule of her father, her father, who was also adamant that his children all graduate from high school.

Jesse Ruiz grew up out in the West Texas town of Slaton. His parents were migrant workers who, with their twelve children, followed the crops to Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota and Colorado. Jesse didn't know a word of English when he started school in the first grade. His family was often still involved in a harvest when the school term started, or left in the spring before school was out. Jesse had been able to complete only the 6th grade.

Gloria's dad was a farmer and her family worked in the fields as well, and they had contracted to chop cotton in West Texas in June of 1963. Gloria recalls, "On one of those weekends, Dad went into Slaton for a haircut. He left me and two sisters parked behind the Piggly Wiggly, and a car full of guys drove by, whistling and flirting. We headed for the truck -- we didn't know who these guys were and didn't want to get in trouble."

One of the boys took special note of the oldest sister. To this day Jesse remembers what Gloria was wearing ("a white pleated skirt and a blue blouse!") and points out with a grin, "I liked the way she looked -- her face got my attention!"

So it was that 18-year-old Gloria and 17-year old Jesse ended up getting acquainted, briefly, after Gloria sent her sister Janie to be the look-out girl, watching for her father's return. They saw each other just a few more times, then Gloria's family headed back home to Donie. "She was gone before I got an address or anything," Jesse noted.

Happily, Jesse was eventually able to get Gloria's address from a mutual friend in Slaton, and in November, Gloria received a letter. Then, she states, "The rest is… history!" The couple became pen pals, and eventually fell in love through writing letters. "There was no way we could have a date," Gloria states. "Jesse wanted to come, but Dad would probably have killed him!"

Gloria graduated from Teague High School in '64 and went to work for Dr. Jimmy Dunn, Jr, a dentist in Teague. She kept up her correspondence with Ruiz through the next two years, and they eventually even managed a weekly phone call -- when she went in to the dental office early on Saturdays. By the time she was twenty, Jesse had asked Gloria to marry him. In the Hispanic tradition, Ruiz and his parents wanted to come to Donie to ask Gloria's father for her hand.

Gloria remembers, "I told Mom, but she would not approach Dad. I told my oldest brother, Fred, who said, "You've gotta tell Dad… and if he says no, you know what you've got to do."

So, waiting until everyone else was asleep one night, Gloria asked. And her father DID say no -- in no uncertain terms: If she were to marry, she would never be welcome to set foot in his house again.

Gloria's brother was right -- she did know what to do. "I knew there could be no wedding, so we made plans to elope." Gloria began taking each of her best dresses, one at a time, to the cleaners. Her father took her to work each day and picked her up at the drug store each afternoon, so each day she would safetypin extra items of clothing to the lining of her winter coat and thus she smuggled most of her wardrobe to the office. Everything had to be kept a secret, even from her closest sister Hope, so that Hope could not be accused of knowing and hiding things from their father.

The day before she planned to catch the bus to Slaton, Gloria made an appointment for a haircut, so she could look her best for her fiance'. That night she wrote a letter to her father which she would leave with a friend at the drug store. It began, "By the time you get this letter I'll be long gone. I've eloped with Jesse Ruiz. We're getting married. Don't worry about me -- we'll be all right."

On Friday morning, June 26th, Gloria's father drove her to the dental office as usual. She went inside, watched her father drive away, grabbed her things, locked the office and walked to the bus station. The bus to Waco didn't come until 11:30, and she spent several tense hours waiting and worrying. What if Dr. Dunn's office called the house to check on her? Would the next car to come around the corner be her father looking for her? Finally the bus came around the corner and Gloria left Teague. She still had one more hurdle to clear. "I thought, 'if I can get to Waco and Dad's not there waiting, I'm home free…' " He was not in Waco, and she safely changed buses and rode to Slaton, where Jesse and his mother were waiting for her. It was the first time the two women had ever met.

The Ruiz clan was working in Colorado at the time, so they spent the night with friends and the next morning they traveled north. Gloria and Jesse were married by a Justice of the Peace in La Junta, Colorado on July 3rd, with Jesse's parents standing up with them. Jesse's mother had fixed up the basement as an apartment for the newlyweds.

Back in Donie, Gloria's father was as angry as she had anticipated -- and her sister Hope was indeed accused of withholding information.

Gloria began writing to her mother. She told her of her marriage, but received no response. She wrote other letters, and wrote when the young couple returned to Slaton and planned a church wedding in late August, but still there was no response. It was a rough time for the young woman who described herself as "just a country girl so separated from my sisters and brothers…" After eight months without a word from home, Gloria contacted her sister at the bank where she worked, and asked her to check at the post office. The post master assured Hope that the mail had been picked up regularly -- by their father. (Years later, Gloria's teenage children, exploring behind their grandparents' house, found a box of the still-unopened letters locked away in the trunk of an old abandoned car on the property.)

At this point, Gloria's paternal grandmother passed away, and her mother contacted them and asked that they come to the funeral in Laredo. By the end of that visit, Gloria's father gave her a hug, and finally approached her young husband, too. (Jesse shares, "I thought it might be a hug to choke me, but it was a friendly hug!") The two men eventually became good friends. With her husband's help, and after much prayer, Gloria was eventually able to put away the resentment that she had long harbored toward her father.

What he lacked in a formal education, Jesse Ruiz made up for with a willingness to work. He was good with his hands and learned to build fences, weld, and do carpentry. Eventually he moved his family to this area, passed his GED, and went to work at the TXU power company, where he put in 25 years before his recent retirement.

After raising their two children, Johnny and Michelle, Gloria went back to school at 43 and earned a degree in nursing. She and Michelle were actually taking classes at the same time, and she was able to help Michelle by babysitting little Kaila.

The Ruiz' obviously had a different philosophy for parenting than Gloria's parents. "I didn't raise them to keep them for me," Gloria insists. "They have a life of their own -- let them fly." Perhaps because of that attitude, the Ruiz' are very close to their children and grandchildren. Johnny and Vickie Ruiz live in Mexia and have two kids, Haleigh and John- Caleb. Michelle and Gerold Grissett live here in Buffalo and "Pops" and "Nana" are the biggest fans at the games of their granddaughters Kaila, Emily, and Allison Grace and are frequent baby-sitters for the littlest, Alayna.

Jesse and Gloria now have a beautiful home off of 1848, filled with warmth and nostalgia. A frame in their bedroom holds a collage of the black and white photo- graphs which they mailed to one another during their long-distance courtship. Another frame holds a piece of tattered fabric which they recently acquired after revisiting the little house where they first lived in the basement -- a piece of the flour-sack curtain which was still covering the window. Gloria still wears the little wedding band Jesse bought her for $22.

The Ruiz's still celebrate several dates: June 26th, which they call their "Commitment Day", their marriage on July 3 and their church wedding on August 28th. They are looking forward to spending their next anniversary, their 44th, on vacation in Italy.

Against all odds, Jesse and Gloria Ruiz made it work. He shared, "It's ironic -- her willing to do what she did. I didn't have anything to offer. All I had to give was love, but I could guarantee that I would love her. We had nothing but each other -- but money is just one of the ways people can be rich." Gloria concurs: "I married The Man. He's my hero because of all he's accomplished with his life." She concludes, "And God had a hand on everything we've done. Everything fell into place. It was meant to be."