How It Started-Noah's Version
How It Started-Noah's Version
If it weren't for this farm, Elizabeth and Noah may have never been.
Growing up in a small town of Bowling Green Indiana, finding friends of my same age were few and far between. I was lucky enough to have a neighbor friend named Andrew who was just a year younger than I was. Andrew and I hung out a lot in the early 2000’s playing paintball, watching Will Ferrell best of DVDs, and playing basketball in town.
One summer he kept talking about his friend Elizabeth Beyers, a girl he went to elementary school with before he moved next door. I didn’t pay much attention to it, until one summer day in 2001 I was at my grandma Mary Lou’s house raiding her refrigerator on one of my 4 wheeler rides in the woods behind her house. On her refrigerator was a newspaper clipping of the county 4-H princess pageant contestants. One of my cousins was participating in it that year and Grandma displayed it proudly on her fridge door along with all of our grandkids mentions in the newspaper. As I looked through the pictures of contestants, I noticed a girl I had never seen before. A very pretty girl with light hair and dark eyes (the picture was black and white, but I thought she was beautiful even without color). It was Elizabeth Beyers from Brazil, Indiana.
Flash forward a few years. I was a Junior at Clay City High School (Elizabeth was a Sophomore) I was taking a slew of new classes this year including Chemistry and Theater. Providentially, Elizabeth had both of these classes as well. I had met Elizabeth before this, but just in passing.
In Chemistry we sat back to back at tables. Mr. Stuckey, our teacher, was a fine teacher and good man, but for the life of me I didn’t understand a lick of what he was talking about. Between him babbling about isotopes, moles, and his secret time undercover (tales I would later learn was just what he called his time backpacking across Europe), I was confused and distracted trying to get to know the girl who sat behind me.
Fifth hour was always my favorite hour of the day, it was Theater class with Ms. Dowell. But more importantly, I sat next to Elizabeth. We hit it off right away. I would try to make her laugh, and it worked! We were always volunteering to be in skits together and teammates when we would play Guesstures (a charades type of game). That year for the Spring play we choose to do “Sleepy Hollow” the story of Ichabod Crane and headless horseman. I was chosen to be male lead Ichabod Crane, and she was chosen to be the lead female lead, a character named Chloe who somehow fell asleep and woke up in 1790 in Sleepy Hollow. We spent many hours running lines and getting to know each other at the local A&W
There was really just one hiccup, Elizabeth had been dating another guy for a couple of years. He was a real nice guy and I was friendly with him as well. I was always secretly wishing something would happen between them and I would be there…waiting… (ok that sounds way creepier then I remember it being at the time).
I even had a class with her boyfriend. Periodically, I would ask things like, “So how are things with Elizabeth?” Secretly with fingers crossed hoping he would say that she dumped him.
Anyway, something else that was cool was we had actually already been to two proms together by this point. Not like I picked her up and brought her a corsage, but rather she went with her boyfriend who was older and I was asked one year by an upperclassman and the next year I asked her good friend to prom so that we could sit at the same table together.
It wasn’t until May of 2004 that she broke with her boyfriend. But I did not just immediately profess my love for her. By this time we were really good friends. I really enjoyed chatting with EKBeyers, her AOL Instant Messenger screen name (mine was MafiaMaster4387 for the record). I had never had a girlfriend and was torn between the idea that I had a really great friend that I didn’t want to lose, and a girl I’d like to tell her how I felt about and make plans with to become a legit couple.
Now that the you have a little background, here is the real story…
On one of the last day’s for school that year we were in Theatre class and Elizabeth said casually she wanted to go to Terre Haute North High School to cheer on her girls track team. She had been a sprinting star, but had hurt her knee and wasn’t able to run anymore. I immediately said I was free and would go with her. We made plans to meet after school and she would drive.
As we drove up Highway 46 towards Terre Haute I remember two things about that car ride. First, she drove a blue Bonneville and had enough legroom for her to cross her left foot under her cross legged as she drove. That was crazy to me a long legged inflexible giant. And second, as we drove we talked about things we wanted out of life. For some reason children came up and I said I had always wanted to have a big family. In fact I was hoping for five kids. She too had always wanted a large family and five was her magic number too.
We went to the track meet, but it was rained out for a few hours. During that intermission we went to Rural King and looked around. She always wore flip flops in those days and they had like $3.00 pairs. I picked out a pair and bought them for her as a joke.
During that time in my life, my parents had owned a doughnut shop business in Bowling Green. I spent many evenings filling orders and driving delivery routes at night. One evening I was filling orders with my neighbor Andrew. The phone rang and the caller ID said Patrick Beyers-I went cold. I answered…"The Doughnut Factory, Noah speaking.” On the other end of the phone was the sound of a whimpering girl crying, it was Elizabeth. “Noah, hi its Elizabeth Beyers, I was at the farm tonight working on my 4H animals, and cow stepped on my right foot and broke it. I was wondering if you would drive me to school? I could pay for gas. If it is too much an inconvenience its ok.” I said, “Oh its not problem, its right on my way (lie-see map below).”
I hung up and was so excited! I told Andrew all about it and revelled about it all night. The next morning I left home, stopped by the doughnut shop, and got her favorite doughnut a chocolate iced yeast, and a 2% white milk and had them waiting for her in her seat and cup holder respectively.
As we drove toward school she told me the whole story about how a cow, now named Stomper, stepped on her foot as she was working with it in a medical shoot while at the farm in Carbon. I was sympathetic and made jokes to try to lighten her mood. It worked. When we got to school she had eaten her doughnut and was smiling. - On a side note, turns out she did not think the milk sitting in her cup holder was for her and she did not touch it. The milk stayed in my car all day in the hot May sun and was disgusting by the time we returned to the car after school . We had a good laugh about it and I took her home.
I drove her home for the last week or so of school and we started to develop a deeper relationship. On June 1st, 2004 we took her sister and a friend to the bowling ally for her birthday. It was a great evening. Around 9pm it was time for me to leave. Now at this moment we were not dating yet, but I had decided that this one of those moments that would go down in history as a pivotal movement in my life or a horrible embarrassment. She walked me outside in her parents driveway and we chatted for a minute. I told her I had a great time with her and really enjoyed the time we were spending together. Then, I leaned in and kissed her. My first ever kiss.
It was one of those moves where I leaned in, kissed, then quickly leaned out expecting a right hook to be flying in, but strangely there wasn’t. She just blushed and said “No-ah…” real exaggerated like. It was evident that it was a welcomed moment and I promised to call her when I got home.
We dated, and dated, and dated. And honestly, never once looked back. We never had a moment of fighting where either of us though we would break up. It was as if we were perfectly matched with our best friend for an exciting life!
When it came time to ask her to marry me all I wanted to do was take us back to the moment where it all started. I had the engagement ring for probably a year just waiting for the right moment. One night we were out doing some shopping and I took a weird route home. I was heading to Carbon.
When we reached the farm she was very perplexed why were there. I pulled in towards the back by the Catawba tree near the barn and we got out of the car. I brought her out in the open lot and said, “I know this may be odd, but I wanted to tell you just how thankful I am for Stomper the cow breaking your foot all those years ago. Because if he hadn’t, I would never of had the opportunity to get to know you more. You know, I could see you and I raising a family in a place like this. An old farmhouse, plenty of land to have some animals, and cool barns for kids to explore.”
Luckily she said yes! I honestly never thought it would actually come to pass that the place I described was where we were standing that summer night all those years ago.
This was one of those moments where once we came full circle and found out were actually going to be moving to the very farm where it all started, I could God’s plan was in motion even when I wasn’t looking for it. I am very thankful that God brought EKBeyers in my life, and can’t wait to see the rest of the story unfold!