Stella Alice Payne

Thank you my love for almost 63 wonderful married years together, AND for not casting me away when we were first together over 84 years ago at Miss Minnie Freise’s Maternity Home. Yep!, Alice and I were first together the very day she was born, October 27, 1941 to Katherine and Harold Lewis, and brother Butch who dubbed her Fifi.

We were both born in Miss Freise’s on 8th Street in Bakersfield California. While I arrived 10 days earlier, my Mom had a challenge working things out so I could enter this wonderful world. Some say I gave my Mom a hard time and did ever after which can’t possibly be true. Truth is I was what was called an “ instrument baby”( no, I wasn’t playing the guitar) and my Mom was at Miss Freise’s for 14 days to recover, and so I could be there to welcome my Fifi 🥰.. I do vaguely recall lying on my back in my bassinet, knees crossed, chatting with the other residents. I had seniority. In rolled a little blonde lying on her tummy with her little tush sticking up. I thought that is who I want to be with forever. So I leaned over the rail and put a little hickey on her left cheek so I might finder later😉( Not sure this last part is really accurate memory😉, but being born together certainly is).

Well anyway, we were destined to be together, though as more grown. We weren’t together until some 18 or so years later we ran into each other at a party at Joe and Jerry Hood’s home. I think their folks were out of town and they threw a party. While I was from the West side of town and Bakersfield High School, I still had friends from the East side and East Bakersfield High School. Jerry was one. He and I were walking down the drive and coming up were three beautiful young ladies from EBHS. They all gave Jerry a hug and a kiss on the cheek and I said what about me. So I got a hugs and kisses too. The girls were Suzy LeMaster, Jeanie Spencer AND Alice Lewis, my Fifi!! Sadly she doesn’t remember, but boy I sure do. We didn’t really meet until a few years later when we were 21 and students at the University of California, Santa Barbara. We were at a “ Bakersfield Party” in her apartment complex near campus. There was a group of us sitting on the floor. We were near each other. I think our friend Steve Strauss was to my right and Alice’s left. As Alice often tells it, she leaned over and asked Steve, “ Is that Tommy Payne”, to which I indelicately replied, “ Well if ya wanna know my name why don’t you ask me!” Boy was I a jerk😏. Turns out I had given her two friends, Suzy & Jeanie, a ride into Santa Barbara earlier that day and they had already asked Alice for the ride. I didn’t know any of that. When Alice showed up to get them they said, “Oh never mind, Tommy Payne took us.” I owe those two ladies much because that helped bring Alice and I together in an indirect way.

Well after being such a “jerk” in my reply, my sweet Fifi still agreed to go out with me the next day. Our first date was in a restaurant/bar in Goleta near campus. All I recall is we sat at the bar drinking boilermakers, after which we were always together😉. We dated around two or so months and were back in Bakersfield for the Christmas holiday break, when I proposed; well kinda. As Alice always recalls I said something like, “Well we’re always together. No reason to go back to two apartments. We might as well get married”. Does sound like a pretty crappy proposal now that I am writing it.😏. In spite of the somewhat “ clinical” proposal, she accepted and we were married a week later by Reverend Lord at her families Methodist Church.. But, letting her and my folks know we were going to get married released some big time concerns on both sides. First we told her Mom and Dad, I recall it was a Friday evening on about January 26, 1963. Alice’s Mom, was telling us that the neighbor girl had just shocked her parents letting them know she was marrying her boyfriend next Friday and she had only been dating him SIX MONTHS! I recall thinking, well no time like the present, so I said, “So are we”. “What’s that Tommy?”. “Alice and I are getting married next Friday”. OMG!!. Shocked expressions, then the questions. “Do you have to?”. “You won’t finish your education!”. And so forth. When we told my Mom and Dad, it was similar. By the way, ALICE’s Dad, Harold, was wonderful and more understanding, , as was my Dad, Jerry. Our Moms, Katherine and Opal seemed more concerned. Very concerned!.

We were married on a Friday, February 1, 1963. Nearly 63 years ago. Fifi was attended by her dear cousin Sue Neville Bickford and my best man was my dear and best friend Dewey Dennis “ Dunc” Hinds. To this day they both have remained our dear friends who we get to see now and then.

So we were married and we had to get back to UCSB. Since we drove home for the holidays in separate cars, we drove away from our wedding in separate cars. Our “wedding dinner” was at Tops, a truck stop restaurant at the”top” of the “Grapevine” highway 99. The waitresses threw some rice.

Seems every month after our wedding we got the nudges from our families, “when will you start a family”. Makes me laugh since a few weeks earlier that was a fear😉. Well we sure worked at starting a family; Hmmm, are we still going through the motions? Can’t really remember😉. Anyway, turns out the good Lord blessed us in another way, and, with the help of the Edna Gladney Agency, we got to adopt the two most outstanding kids ever, our Jacob, 8 days at the time, and three and a half years later, our Joanna, 18 days. We are so blessed. Jacob married Jennifer and we have grandkids Caroline and Jack. Joanna married Brandon and we have grandpuppies Maggie and Rose and grandkitties, Sammy and Charlie. Oh yes, the not finishing our education concern? Alice and I walked across the stage together to receive our BA’s from UCSB in 1965, and entered post graduate school at UC Riverside. Soon the question was,” You going to ever finish going to school?” . Well we did, Alice with a social work specialty and secondary ed. degree, and me with a MS and PhD.

My Fifi has been very active wherever we lived. She worked as a library assistant at Texas A & M, my first university, and at Virginia Tech. Later she volunteered to teach trouble high school kids in Blacksburg, where she also was in the church choir, and Master Choral as well as belonging to the ladies canoe, bike and hiking groups. When we joined the University of Missouri, she joined the Sacred Heart Choir and other activities in the church, as well as being in the ladies Fortnightly Club and becoming president, and working in the Assistance League leading the Book Bags Program.

Fifi was honored by the University of Missouri with the naming of the Tom and Alice Payne Plaza on campus. She was a wonderful, warm-hearted giving person, loved by all who knew her, especially me. I have a big empty place in my heart I will fill with memories of her🥰

In lieu of flowers, please contribute to “Fifi’s Team” on the Alzheimer’s Foundation website

https://act.alz.org/site/TR?fr_id=19450&pg=personal&px=15208244