Gwen and Tom Nichols, courtesy photo
Being followed by a cop isn’t the way most people meet the love of their life, but it worked for Tom and Gwen Nichols on a cold Arizona night in 1962.
Gwen was working as a teacher in Tucson, Arizona. It was only a few weeks until Christmas and downtown Tucson was aglow. The warm green and red lights made the desert city feel like a Hallmark movie, even with no snow on the ground. Tucson adorned its downtown decadently for the holidays, the couple said.
Gwen was driving two friends home when they noticed a car pull up next to them. The man in the passenger seat was Tom Nichols, an off-duty police officer. He was with his friend Carl, the longtime friends going to play billiards.
Carl noticed Gwen’s Chevy with Texas plates and told Tom, “There are some real pretty girls over there.”
They tried keeping up with the Chevy, riding along while flashing grins, but after Gwen pulled a left turn, the women disappeared.
“We just thought that was it. We’d never see them again,” Tom said.
Carl and Tom made their way east on Broadway. They pulled up to a traffic light about a mile outside downtown – next to the Chevy.
“That was divine intervention,” Tom said, smiling.
The women noticed the young, eager gentlemen who kept flashing them smiles. Gwen continued driving and eventually pulled up to her apartment. Carl and Tom pulled up beside them. The group started chatting.
“I remember asking my friends what they thought about the guys,” Gwen said.
Her friends Don and Hazel nonchalantly said they should keep the conversation going. Eventually, they invited them in for a cup of coffee. As they turned to go inside, Tom took in the sight of Gwen, really seeing her for the first time.
“I thought to myself, ‘I’m going to marry that long-legged Texan,” he said.
After successfully securing her phone number as his coffee cup ran dry, Tom headed out, patiently waiting to call. He wasn’t going to call the next day, not wanting to appear too eager. A few days later, he rang Gwen and arranged a date. Tom took her to Johnny’s Drive-In, where they had hamburgers, chocolate pie and coffee for $1.30.
When they had met a few days earlier, Tom only said he worked for the city. He wasn’t sure how people would react to him being a police officer, so he left this detail out.
The couple joke that Tom and Carl following Gwen’s car was enough for one night. He didn’t want to startle the women by mentioning he was a cop. Besides, he wasn’t on duty that night (even though he was quick to recount how Gwen’s left turn was technically illegal).
Tom did tell Gwen he was a police officer over hamburgers and chocolate pie, though. She just listened quietly and the topic then changed. What Tom thought might be a problem for a future partner didn’t seem to faze Gwen.
They started seeing each other regularly. They fell in love and fell hard.
Tom was methodical and calculated. Gwen was spontaneous and whimsical. When they were young, Gwen convinced Tom to drive the six hours to San Diego after work some Fridays to dine on the Embarcadero.
By the following spring, the two had a hard time imagining life without the other.
They were on a date one night and while sitting in the car, Tom said, with no forethought, “Gwen, I want to marry you.”
Gwen leaned forward, pointed her nose up ever so slightly, and said, “I’m flattered.”
The following week, they went shopping downtown and picked out rings.
Then came one major hitch. Tom’s family were devout Catholics. Gwen’s were devout Methodists. Gwen’s family was in Denton, Texas, and as she went home to visit them that summer of 1963, she told them she was getting married. A few weeks later, Tom flew to Texas to meet them.
Gwen recalls her mother taking Tom aside for a serious conversation after lunch the day he arrived. Tom wanted to get married in the Catholic church and this meant Gwen would need to convert. This alarmed Gwen’s mother and the rest of the family. Her aunt even worked at the Methodist church – they could not envision a Catholic wedding, let alone Gwen converting.
“After much discussion, it was decided we’d have a Catholic wedding,” Gwen said.
Which was a big deal because, as Tom said, “she was a very good Methodist.”
Gwen and Tom had made their decision, though. In the 1960s, there were very few Catholics in Denton, Texas.
“I don’t think I’d ever met a Catholic person in my life,” Gwen said, laughing.
So when the wedding day finally came, there were a hundred Methodists in the town’s one Catholic church. The couple joke it was probably the first and last time there were so many protestants in a Catholic church.
As divided as the attendees may have been on denominations, they were unified around their excitement for the couple. Gwen wore a beautiful gown with a lace bodice and satin skirt. Tom appeared in a black tuxedo and a white boutonniere.
Two careers, two children and four grandchildren later, the couple returned to the Catholic church in Denton recently to celebrate their 60th anniversary.
Tom went on to climb the ranks of public service first in Tucson, then in Lubbock.
He served as Lubbock’s chief of police for seven years before serving in the same role for Lubbock Independent School District (LISD), where he pioneered public school safety legislation for Lubbock and the state of Texas.
Gwen enjoyed a full career in public education, working for LISD as a librarian.
After retiring, Tom took his years of experience and started writing novels, with two of them now under contract for film.
When it came time to retire, they decided it wouldn’t be prudent to retire the same day, so one retired one semester and the other waited until the next.
The couple has traveled to countless countries. They also visit their grandkids in Dallas often. But their favorite road trip remains that first one they took – in separate cars – down Broadway in 1962.
Comment, react or share on our Facebook post.
