Ann Hesse wasn't sure she would hear from Steve Rowell after he spent time with her toddler.

Steve liked kids, though, and Ann's 2 ½-year-old son, Jordan, was no exception.

"Ours is a love story of three," she says. "Steve loved Jordan before he loved me, and I was and am fine with that. We were a package deal."

Ann and Steve first met when Ann visited the singles Sunday School class at St. James United Methodist Church in Little Rock in January 1986.

Ann, who was divorced, had been going to services at St. James for a while but she had waited to drop in on the singles group on a weekend when someone else was caring for her son. She joined the group for lunch at the Black-eyed Pea after church, which gave her a chance to get to know Steve a little bit.

He told her then that the group played volleyball in the church's gymnasium on Tuesdays, and she decided to join in the fun. But Steve had forgotten that the gym would be closed the following Tuesday.

"She showed up and I showed up and she brought Jordan, but no one else was there," he says. "So we were there in the parking lot talking, and Ann said, 'Well, let's go get something to eat.'"

They went to Shorty Smalls, just down the road from the church.

"We sat there and ate and Jordan played video games without any money," he says. "I offered to give him some change but Ann said, 'No, no, I don't want to get him started, realizing that you have to put money in there.'"

They went to Ann's house from there.

"I was sitting on the couch with Jordan and he was playing around and next thing I know he threw up on me," Steve says.

He left soon after that, and Ann's mother surmised that would be the last Ann heard of him. But Steve was unrattled.

"To me it was funny," he says. "It was not that big of a deal."

He was leaving on a ski trip that Saturday, so he called Ann from work the next day to ask her to go on a real date the Friday night before.

"That happened to have been Steve's birthday," Ann says. "I didn't know that until he showed up, but our first date was on his birthday in 1986."

They saw a Sherlock Holmes movie and ate at Bennigan's.

Jordan didn't go with them that night, but he joined them on subsequent occasions.

"A typical Friday night would be us and Jordan going somewhere like Walmart," Ann says.

"Or we would take him to a movie and he would sleep through it," Steve adds. "That was pretty good but Ann would have to reach her hand over to keep the seat down because it would flip up on him."

Jordan was a regular presence among their Sunday School group, too.

"He was a trooper," Steve says. "He never was in the way and our friends in the Sunday School group that we ran around with liked him so they played with him, too, just like a big family."

After dating for about a year and a half, Steve and Ann decided it was time to get married.

"We had spent loads of time together," Steve says. "We were just kind of moving along. It was just time."

Steve had braces when they got engaged, but he asked his orthodontist to take them off a little early so his smile would be metal-free for their wedding.

"He had braces on when we met so I had never known him without braces until about a week before we got married," Ann says.

They exchanged their vows in a small ceremony on Aug. 7, 1987, at St. James United Methodist Church.

"He wore a suit and I found a nice dress," Ann says.

Both had friends and family looking on, but Jordan was their only honor attendant and Ann wasn't sure how that would go.

"He was standing up there with us all, we've got a minister there and Jordan found a brass plate in the floor and he started tapping on it with his foot, which is very loud," she says.

Steve notes you can hear Jordan stomping on that plate in their wedding video.

Jordan was just out of Ann's reach, so she stuck her foot out and nudged him.

Fortunately, everyone got a chuckle out of the brief disturbance.

The newlyweds honeymooned in San Francisco before settling together in Little Rock.

Ann and Steve's daughter, Ashley, was born about two years after they married. Ashley and Jordan both live in Dallas. Ann and Steve have two grandchildren.

Steve, a lawyer, took a job in Miami shortly after they were wed, but they moved back to Little Rock about a year later and they have been in Little Rock since. They have remained active members at St. James.

"We met at St. James, we got married at St. James, Ashley was baptized at St. James," Ann says. "That's been our lives."

If you have an interesting how-we-met story or if you know someone who does, please call (501) 425-7228 or email:

The first time I met my future spouse:

She says: “He was just a really nice guy, and that was very important to me.”

He says: “I recognized how brave she was to walk into a classroom like that. I also noticed just how nice she was.”

She says: “I can remember mostly being nervous. But I was nervous about Jordan, not about Steve.”

He says: “I was just a little nervous. I wasn’t nervous about Jordan, just the whole idea of the wedding.”

My advice for a long happy marriage:

She says: “I would say have fun together.”

He says: “I would say forgiveness, because you’re going to make mistakes, and patience and communication.”

Print Headline: Despite mishap with her kid, he joined the family

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