Love's labors not lost on Frisco couple in joy or pain
___By George Henson
___Staff Writer
___FRISCO--Through nearly 60 years of marriage, love has transformed Ann and Bob Warren's house into a home.
___That love can be seen in the family portraits covering the walls, in the bathroom decorated by their children with Aggie jokes--and in the gleam in her eye as she looks at him.
___It also can be seen in the way faith has sustained the couple through multiple health problems in their later years.
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ANN WARREN displays the stylish mohawk haircut she got prior to her surgery.
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___Even though both of them had been born in Frisco, the Warrens first laid eyes on one another at the First Baptist Church there in June 1941. He was back home for the summer from Texas A&M, and she had just returned to the small community where her family had lived years before.
___Ann was playing the organ that night as Bob walked in with another girl. Their eyes met, however, and Bob flashed a dazzling smile to meet Ann's gleaming eyes.
___"He was so skinny then, all you could see was teeth," she recalled.
___She was smitten, and he was too. He came back to church the next night alone.
___They were married May 9, 1942, a few weeks before his graduation.
___Over the succeeding years, he entered the Air Corps, flew C-47s in World War II--including service in the Battle of the Bulge--and eventually went to work for Exxon.
___Five children were born into their home as well. All were healthy and happy.
___Through it all, the Warrens found happiness in their marriage, they believe, through love and mutual respect.
___"Young people seem to get caught up on whose turn it is to do something," she said. "Whose turn it is to do the dishes, whose turn it is to change the baby. We never did that. I've always tried to make his life easier, and he's always tried to make mine easier. If either of us saw something that needed to be done, we've just done it."
___Humor also has been a key ingredient.
___"Bob's always been easy to get along with," she said. "I know I've been harder to live with."
___"I don't remember it that way, but then I don't remember everything anymore either," he quipped. "Besides, I've never had any experience with any other wives, so I thought that was the way it was supposed to be."
___That sense of humor rubbed off on their children as well. They have decorated a bathroom in the Warren's home with Aggie paraphernalia. Some of the best of it is homemade, like the Aggie switchblade made of a clothes pin, craft sticks and a rubber band--or the Aggie dominoes with the holes drilled all the way through.
___The Warrens always were involved in church wherever his job took them. He was ordained as a deacon at First Baptist Church in Sulphur Springs in 1955.
___After retirement, they returned to Frisco, to the home where his parents had lived. He served on the city council for six years and was mayor of Frisco for seven years. A park was named in his honor, and he became the namesake for a particular kind of hamburger at a local restaurant.
___Then he had a heart attack in 1996, just as they were leaving on a trip to California.
___That night was the beginning of a big turn in their lives, they concede. Before, life had been largely remarkably trouble free. But now things were different.
___He eventually received a pacemaker, suffered an infection around the pacemaker and then was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
___Through God's grace and good medicine, he has recovered and is as healthy as an 80-year-old man can be.
___She is not as fortunate, though.
___In 1998, she suffered a stroke. Diagnostic tests following that revealed hydrocephalus, fluid on her brain. Doctors suspect the condition had probably been present earlier without her being aware. To take the fluid off her brain, a shunt was put in place to drain the fluid into her stomach.
___"The doctors told me, 'When we put this in, we really don't know what will happen. You could come out of this a vegetable'" she said.
___"But she didn't turn out to be a vegetable or even a vegetarian," he joked. Once again, their sense of humor has helped them through a difficult experience.
___About five months after the shunt was put in, doctors told her it had become clogged and would have to be removed and one inserted in the other side of her head. They would have to shave one side of her head to remove the shunt and shave the other side to put in the new one.
___She didn't want to have her entire head shaved, however. So Bob, the son of Frisco's town barber, did the job.
___"He gave me a mohawk," she said with a grin. And not just any mohawk, but one with purple and green spikes. "We thought we might as well have some fun with it," she said.
___She also has battled fibromyalgia, a painful disease in which soft tissues of the body become inflamed.
___But the couple believe they wouldn't have changed a thing.
___"It's brought us closer together, but more than that it's brought us closer to God," she said. "Before, I had my priorities wrong. I still loved God and knew he loved me, but it was like he was sitting just over there where I could call on him whenever I needed to."
___She especially remembers a time during her illness when that changed. She had a vision of her life. Her life was a pie-shaped container overflowing with things, and there was no room for God.
___"I just started throwing out all these things that had seemed so important--my house, my car, what people thought of me. I could see myself just pitching them over my shoulder. As I did, the sides of that pie-shape came closer and closer together until there was just a tiny space between them, and when I looked between them I saw a star. That star was God. He was the only thing left."
___Through their years, the Warrens have known faith, hope and love. And they are convinced along with the Apostle Paul that the greatest of these is love--with a side serving of humor, of course.
___First Baptist Church in Frisco has changed locations since they first met. The church building they once knew now is a restaurant, The Abbey.
___Bob jokes that he was baptized in the salad bar. Then he smiles.
___Many things have changed through the years, but her eyes still gleam every time he flashes that smile.___
The Baptist Standard
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