Local couples – from different generations – discuss their love
About two years ago, Grace Anderson became infatuated by one of her brother’s Robbinsville High School Wrestling teammates.
At the same time, the young wrestler – Payne Anderson – was cultivating feelings for Grace.
“We kind of got embarrassed, because we both mutually liked each other from afar, but were just too afraid to say anything,” Grace said. “My brother hooked us up a little bit.”
The two slowly moved toward a relationship, with Grace out of school and Payne a junior in high school.
“He would come over to my house, and we’d stay up and watch movies, then go to McDonald’s at like 1 a.m., and get chicken nuggets and sit in the parking lot of Ingles,” Grace said. “We would do all kinds of fun stuff.”
Payne said after splitting up briefly, they got back together and realized that they wanted to stay together.
“I knew when we got back together that she was the one I wanted to be with,” he said.
Payne, 19 and Grace, 21, married in an outdoor wedding on June 20, 2020.
“We were only allowed to have like 50 people,” Payne said. “A whole lot of my friends didn’t get to come, and a lot of her friends didn’t get to come. It was pretty much like family and the groomsmen and bridesmaids.”
Young love
About 40 years prior and nearly halfway across the state, another couple met for the first time.
Leann and Mike Ramsey, who have called Graham County home for 21 years, first met in Gastonia, with Leann in high school and Mike in college.
“Some girlfriends of mine said, ‘There are some boys playing basketball up at the gym. Let’s go check them out,’” Leann said. “We went to check them out, and he asked my best friend for her phone number, and she wouldn’t give it to him, so I gave him my number.”
Mike said their dating was pretty typical for the time, with movie and dinner dates on the weekends. As the couple grew closer and more serious, Leann would spend time camping with Mike’s family in Bryson City.
“I kind of got to know this area a little bit,” Leann said.
The couple was together for 2 1/2 years before marrying in a church wedding on March 29, 1982.
“The fit was pretty great right off,” Mike said. “There was a song, ‘Running on Empty’ back in the 70’s and that kind of described me: running on empty – like an empty tank – and she filled it up.”
Leann, 58, also pointed out several uncanny similarities between her and Mike, 62, growing up. Each of them has a sibling 12 years their junior. She also pointed out that she lived on Woodleigh Drive and he lived on Woodleaf Drive in Gastonia.
“I think God put us together,” Leann said.
Neither couple plans to do anything too special for Valentine’s Day, with Mike and Leann saying that they usually attended the Valentine’s Day dinner hosted by Robbinsville First Baptist Church. However, this year’s event has been cancelled due to COVID-19.
“That’s kind of been our tradition,” Leann noted.
Mike also said for many years of their marriage, he would often be traveling for work on Valentine’s Day. Dates would be the weekend before and the weekend after.
Key to happiness
Payne and Grace – who are expecting their first child in September – plan to celebrate their love with a takeout meal at home, featuring items from several establishments.
“I made a list of all the food that I want, because I am pregnant and I want all the foods,” Grace said with a laugh. “He has a list on his phone of all the foods that he is going to hopefully take care of.”
The young couple also spoke to the parts of marriage they found most difficult so far.
“I think my hardest part is having to run what I do by somebody else, whether it’s financially or just whatever, having to let her know what I’m doing, because it’s not just me, it’s both of us,” Payne said.
Grace said the part she found most difficult was finding alone time when she needed it.
“It’s definitely hard when I’ve had a day at work where I’ve had to talk to so many people and come home, and I just need my space for a minute,” Grace said. “Figuring that out and adjusting to being with somebody for that time just over and over and over is definitely challenging.”
She said for them, having some time separate was beneficial to their relationship.
“If he wants to go hunting, I’m cool watching movies all day or going out with my mom, or something like that,” Grace said.
The couple also recently purchased their first home together.
“What I enjoy the most is just building,” Payne said. “That’s what I like.”
The Ramsey’s said their faith was one of the major building blocks of their marriage, and also encouraged young couples to find other couple friends, rather than the husband and wife having separate friend groups.
“Not ‘This is my group of friends, and this is her group of friends,’” Mike said. “That just helps separate. Try to have couple friends to do things together with.
“The longer you’re married, the more you find out that the things you used to argue about really don’t matter anymore. It really wasn’t a big deal, and you were just wasting time.”
Leanne also spoke to the small gestures Mike used to show his love for her.
“He loves me well,” she said. “He does things, like he gets up in the morning and cranks my car for me so I don’t have to go out to a cold car.”
Grace also spoke to one of the most important rules for her relationship.
“Never go to bed angry,” She said. “That is one thing someone told us. We’ve stayed up until 4, 5, 6 in the morning discussing things and having some hard, tough conversations, but if you don’t deal with those things – and you get up and go to work, and don’t see them for six hours – that’s really hard to let sit on your mind.”