A Marriage Built on Christ and Prayer

Written by Pangshua Riley with Larry & Doris Francis

From the Archives: The Journey Summer 2015

Larry and Doris Francis, residents of Land Harbor, chuckled as they reminisced over their many years of dating and courtship, of how they met during high school, fell in love and married. Doris would begin a sentence and Larry would finish. Then Larry would share meaningful, treasured details of their story as Doris soaked it in, as if experiencing their love story for the first time. 

It was evident how very much in love they were. Had you been eavesdropping, you would have thought they were teenagers without a care in the world but for each other. It is through their journey of endurance, hardship, loss and faith, that they have discovered the strength of their marriage. This is their inspiring story of how God made them one, to help carry each other’s burdens, learn to pray together through the storms, and to always trust God. 

“December 28, 1955. That was our first date. We were both ninth graders,” Larry proudly shared. 

She came into my homeroom class every morning to deliver the lunch order. I remember thinking, “Who is this cute gal?” Eager to find out her name, I turned to the boy sitting next to me, Paul Matheny, and asked if he happened to know her. To my shock, he did! She was Paul’s first cousin. A couple months later, we went on our first little date and I knew she was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. 

Since that first date, Larry and Doris have been inseparable. 

Doris confessed, “A date was considered one time a week, on Saturdays. We could only sit at my house, so he had to love me!” And she knew he must have loved her because Larry would often walk the distance from his house to hers on Saturday just to spend time with her. 

They spent every Saturday getting to know each other and became best friends. They were each other’s biggest fans. Larry played football and Doris cheered. They even participated in their school plays together. You would think this story was stolen from the script of a Nicholas Sparks novel, but they’re as authentic and real as they come. 

At the end of their senior year, having dated for almost four years, Larry and Doris decided they were both going to attend Appalachian State. Doris knew she had to tell her mother, and it wouldn’t be an easy thing to do. Despite the fact that Larry and Doris both grew up in Christian, loving, and healthy homes, Doris knew her mother was a little overprotective because she had lost her mother at a young age. When she shared this with Larry, he proposed they get married! The summer after they graduated from high school, Larry and Doris married, on July 19, 1959. 

“We were taking a leap of faith because we didn’t have any money,” Doris recounted. “My granddaddy gave me $20 as a graduation gift and my mother gave me $100.” 

Larry jokingly injected, “Oh, I had about 37 cents!” So they took some of their $120.37 and planned on a small honeymoon trip to Asheville. 

A couple weeks after their honeymoon, Larry landed a short-term job painting schools in Winston Salem. It was the only source of income they had. So for the first two months in marriage, Larry and Doris went days without seeing each other because Larry could only get away on the weekends. Despite the challenge of making the distance work, they were finally ready to move to Boone that September. Thankfully, they both earned teaching scholarships that would financially assist them through their first year in college. 

“Then in November, I got pregnant,” Doris shared. “I was terrified to tell my mother because I told her if she allowed me to marry Larry, we would finish school before having children. I felt like I had lied to my mother, but God allowed us to get through that winter. Mother shared her support and was one of our biggest cheerleaders.” 

When I gave birth to our little girl, Tami, I was convinced I would stay home so that Larry could finish school. My mother was not going to have it that way! She knew it would be challenging for the both of us to go through school while raising a child so offered to take care of Tami for us. We both finished school in three and a half years. 

Those were difficult years, being away from Tami. She was living with my mother in Rutherford County so that we could focus on finishing our degrees. I would go to school during the week, and then on the weekends, I would rush to spend time with my sweet baby girl. 

God helped us through that time. It was a challenging time being so far from Tami. There were weekends we were unsure we were going to be able to see her. God continued to pour his blessings on us so that we could get to see Tami as often as we could. 

I am so thankful for my mother through those years. She and Tami have such a special bond because of it. As Tami grew during those years, my mother would always hold a picture out of Larry and me and share with Tami that we were her parents. My life has always been patterned after love. It was an environment I grew up in and that I wanted for my own family. I have built my life’s motto around 1 John 4:7, “Beloved, love one another because God loves us.” Pushing through those years, as Larry worked through school, and I paid friends a dollar here and a dollar there to take me up and down the mountain. 

When we graduated, God continued to provide for us. Larry was given multiple opportunities to work in carpentry. He developed his construction skills through contract jobs over the years, and after we retired, Larry built homes for our kids. 

From the very beginning of marriage, and especially when we first had Tami, prayer has been an important part of our lives. We labored in prayer daily for our children and family. We still do to this day. We have seen God at work in our lives from the beginning. We always believed He was working in our lives, whether we could see it or not. We just knew it. We just believed it. It didn’t take much to make us happy. If we had cole slaw and beans, we were happy. 

For many years, after we graduated from college, we continued to pursue higher degrees. While I was working on my masters, the kids were at home with Larry. Tami was 14 years older than our youngest, Chris, at the time. She and her sister Pam were able to help take care of Chris and work in the garden. Along with Larry, we made that season work. God provided the opportunities for us to continue in school. Every bit of success in our lives is because of God. 

Larry and Doris were educators. Larry was the principal at Chase High School for 19 years and Doris, an assistant principal. As they reflected on their joyful experience as educators, Larry looked to his wife and said, “She inspires me. She inspired me everyday.” 

He shared about her love for the Bible. “She is the kind of person who doesn’t need to hear that someone is hurting. She just sees people’s pain and isn’t afraid to approach them. She meets people everywhere we go with open arms and will pray for them wherever we are.” 

Doris continued to share, “We have been members of the First Baptist Church of Newland for over 20 years now. We love the faith community we have found in our church and our community. These are the people who we have leaned on and in return, poured back. We pray together. We celebrate together. Just as we have done for many years in our marriage, it is something we can do with our church and family too. We just believe in the power of prayer.”