Kindness. Patience. Togetherness. These are the qualities that have built two very beautiful — even if very different — love stories in the Baylor Family.
On Friday, February 14, The Baylor Line hosted a packed house in the President’s Suite at the Baylor Club in McLane Stadium for our first Sweetheart’s Dinner. Music, drinks, a lovely dinner, and heartfelt conversation all led to the main event of the evening: An interview with Robert and Alice Baird and Kaye and Curtis Callaway.
Bob and Alice Baird met at Baylor in the Fall of 1958. Alice worked as a teacher after undergrad and then was a stay at home wife and mother for the following fifteen years. She returned to the classroom and taught for nineteen years at University High School. Bob was a member of Baylor University’s faculty for forty-seven years as a member of the Philosophy department. For eighteen of those years he was the chair of the department. They’ve been married for sixty five years!
Kaye and Curtis Callaway met in jail in 2014. (More on that in a bit.) Kaye has lived a hundred lives jumping from oil and gas landman, to teacher, to farmer, to attorney. She graduated from Baylor Law School in 2009 and is now an entrepreneur. Curtis has been a photographer for thirty five years and was a professor at Baylor for photography and digital journalism for fourteen years. Kaye and Curtis live very adventurous and exciting lives, but the most important adventure has been eachother. They have been married for eight years.
This interview has been lightly edited for context and clarity.
What is the first memory you have of the other person?
Alice Baird: Well, I called him Bobby and I still do. I remember that Bobby Baird was going to be the youth pastor and deliver the sermon. I remember I was seated — I’ve never even told him this story — and he was standing up, and I can remember thinking to myself, “I would be so scared if I were going to be delivering a sermon at First Baptist Church. I just wonder how he’s feeling.”
Bob Baird: For me, the first time I remember seeing Alice, is when we were in Little Rock, Arkansas. We were both Baylor students, but I didn’t know her. We were at the home of a friend of mine, who had become a very good friend of Alice’s. And the first time I laid eyes on her, I remember I walked into the house and they were still having lunch, and I saw her over there and I thought, “What a good-looking, sexy young woman.”
Alice Baird: I didn’t necessarily think Bobby Baird was sexy that first time I saw him. That came later.
What a way to start. If you could go back to that moment, almost seven decades ago, what do you think you’d want to tell yourself about the life you’ve now lived with the person that you had just laid eyes on?
Bob Baird: It will be a happy, sexy life, is what I would say.
In those moments where you first saw each other, in those moments where you were first getting to know each other, how do you still see those moments showing up today in the life you live now?
Alice Baird: I knew that Bobby Baird was a very intelligent guy, and this is a story I always tell. When I was a freshman before I ever met him… I have to admit, I was something of an intellectual snob. And one of the reasons I was is that I had a boyfriend, a serious boyfriend, who was attending Harvard Law School. So, one time at Baylor, I was talking to my friends, and I was complaining — I’m really embarrassed about this, but I’ll admit it. I was complaining that I hadn’t met any boys that I thought were very smart. So my friend Sharon said, “Well, you just need to meet Bobby Baird and Joe Hicks. They’re the smartest guys at Baylor.” Well, I totally believed every word she said. Every word. And so that homecoming, my parents who were Baylor graduates, came to homecoming and took me to the Hickory Stick Restaurant
We were sitting there having our meal, and Bob and Joe walked in. And so I said to Mother and Daddy, “Now don’t look now, but those two boys who walked in are the smartest boys in Baylor.”
Now, I didn’t know that myself personally, but that’s just what my friend told me.
Well, my daddy stored that little knowledge up. And so the next year when Bob and I started dating, and I wrote Mother and Daddy, telling them that I was dating Bobby Baird, Daddy wrote back and he said, “Isn’t he one of the two smartest guys in Baylor?”
He bought into that and so did my mother, and so did my family. And so there was never any question about the fact that Bobby Baird was a real catch.
Turning to Curtis and Kaye. First, you met in jail. Does your parole officer know you’re here? Can you tell me about that day and what you mean by you met in jail?
Curtis Callaway: Do you want to tell it, or you want me?
Kaye Callaway: How about I’ll start and you finish?
We live outside a little town called Clifton. Actually, we live at my grandparents farm outside of town. But in Clifton, I bought a little bitty old jail downtown. It’s in an alley, and it was built the in 1920s or 30s. It was just a little concrete square, and I love the history. So I bought it from the town and turned it into a BNB — well, it’s not a bed and breakfast, though. It is a bed and booze.
Well, I wanted to have a good photographer take pictures of it. And a mutual acquaintance told me, “Oh, there’s this guy you’ve got to meet.” She worked for my CPA, who turned out to be Curtis’s dad’s same CPA. And I could tell there was more to the offer than simply a photographer contact. I was like, “No, thanks. I’m not even dating.” I’d been divorced for 15 years. I was not interested in being set up.
But, I was working with an ad agency and they, too, had given me his name — they gave me two names of people that they respected as photographers and thought were good. And so they got bids from both and I was like, “Well, if I’m going to have to pay for this, okay, I’ll just get him to do it.” So they hired him for me.
And literally we met in the jail whenever he was coming to take pictures.
I do think this is the most time the words “sexy” and “jail” have been said in the President’s Suite of the Baylor Club.
So you both lived full lives before you met. You both experienced career successes and career changes. You’d built families and you’d each made the tough decision to leave your first marriages. Kaye, like you mentioned, and I’ve heard both of you say that you were very convicted at the time that you would never marry again. Yet here you are tonight. What changed your mind?
Curtis Callaway: God. A big jump. And a leap of faith.
We’ll get to that part more in a moment. For now, same question as Bob and Alice. What parts of that moment where you first met — what parts of those younger people are still in your relationship? When you’re around the house, when you’re traveling together, how do you still see that same Curtis, that same Kaye?
Kaye Callaway: When we met that day, it was fascinating. We just clicked. It was so easy. We just talked and talked for hours and hours and hours. It was so easy.
Then we ended up meeting in Waco and we talked and we talked and we just talked and talked. And then he had him come out a couple of times. We kind of started dating, and then we sort of did, but we weren’t really trying to. And I think we fell in love in the kitchen smelling spices. And when we did fall in love, to us, that was amazing.
We had been hurt, and we weren’t going to go through that again.
Curtis Callaway: Yeah. I made it real clear I wasn’t getting married again. And she said, “Good.” Obviously, that changed.
It’s still so much like when we met the first time. We still have so much fun in the kitchen. We love to cook.
Bob and Alice, as you reflect back on your lives together, what do you think has been the most important season of life that you’ve navigated together? This could be a season of positive change, a serious season of uncertainty, or even a season of loss, of hurt, or of challenge. Maybe a season that you wouldn’t have been able to navigate without Alice or without Bob?
Bob Baird: Well, as we look back on our lives, we’re grateful for our 65 years together with our three children. But in 2012, we lost our oldest child, Kathy, and can there be a greater grief in a couple’s life than the loss of child?
Our daughter, Kathy, she’d gone to Princeton and Columbia Law School and she was teaching law school in California, had two children and a husband, but she entered into a deep, deep depression. She came out of it once. She went into another deep depression, and she took her own life in 2012.
It is just inconceivable to me that I could have made it through all of that without Alice. I think she and I were so important to one another along with all of our friends and our other two children. So clearly the pain in our life was the loss of our daughter.
When you go through grief like that, there are times when I think one of us was ready to cry, and we would then honor one another’s time to cry. I think being sensitive to one another’s needs in the moment was probably the most important thing in going through that together. I think our ability to read one another’s feelings at the moment was probably the most important thing.
Alice Baird: There was never a time during those awful days when I really felt alone, because I felt that Bob was always there, that he was walking through this with me, as were our children, and our family. Everybody looked up to Kathy. Everybody loved her and admired her so much.
Now, knowing that not only did I have Bob, but I had my nieces and nephews and I had my siblings and of course our friends like the Coopers and the Dyers who lived right there in the neighborhood with us, and our church, Lakeshore Baptist Church. I mean, I don’t know how people can go through a grief like we had without family and church and spouse. I mean, we couldn’t have made it without all those various communities and one another.
What advice would you leave somebody with that? What advice would you leave somebody who might be going through maybe not the same season as that, but who’s navigating something with their spouse? How would you advise them to stay connected and to stay in love?
Bob Baird: I just think being open to one another’s feelings. When you’re grieving, and especially in a situation like this where the grief is really ongoing. I mean, it’s not just momentary grief. So to individuals who are grieving something like this, there are different seasons in a sense of the grief. So one day I might be grieving more strongly than Alice, but she was there for me and vice-versa. So I just think being sensitive to where the other is with regard to grief.
Kaye and Curtis, I know that y’all have navigated a season of grief as well, one that was much earlier in your relationship. How did that define your relationship? How did that season of hurt and pain and loss also bring that togetherness of having that person to walk through each day with you?
Curtis Callaway: I think it made our relationship extremely strong, because it was a total reset on life.
For those who don’t know, Kaye and Curtis were traveling in Big Bend National Park a few years ago, and they’d been dating for a few months, and Kaye attempted to jump across a gorge, a chasm. And she didn’t make it to the other side.
Curtis Callaway: Well, no, she made it to the other side.
You’re right. One foot made it to the other side.
Curtis Callaway: We’d only been dating for eight months and we had already made it clear we weren’t going to get married. I was photographing someone else jumping across the chasm. Then Kaye said that she wanted to jump across too, so I have a great photo of it. That photo changed my life forever, which was the cover of Fall 2021’s The Baylor Line Magazine. I knew at that point as I was holding her head and neck, keeping her stable, that I wasn’t leaving her side for the rest of my life.
And that was God’s way of saying, “No, you’re going to get married. This is the right woman.” And she is, definitely.
Kaye Callaway: I have no regret for making the decision to jump, because it changed who I am, and it changed who we are. It’s that part of faith, faith is that fine line of what we want and then what we believe He knows better than we do.
I was in the hospital for only two weeks — miracles of all kinds. He was there with me in the hospital for 24-7, and my daughters and my brother came and he met them. Curtis became closer to my family than he ever would have, and vice versa.
When I knew I wanted to spend my life with him was when we came back home. He was helping me get settled in and he said, “I have to go teach.” And he was apologizing, he said, “I have to go, but I’ll come back.” And I said, “You don’t have to.” He said, “But I will.”
That touched my heart in a way that I knew I could truly trust him. That was faith. He meant what he said, and I knew I would marry him if he ever asked.
What advice would y’all give somebody navigating a very tough season like that?
Curtis Callaway: Patience, because communication was very difficult through the whole process with her aphasia. And there were times when she would be talking about something and I didn’t know where she was going with it. So I had to pray for patience.
And communication is critical, and I think that’s probably what has helped us so much because we’ve had to slow down and take time to make sure we communicate properly and we understand each other.
Be patient, and really communicate.
I’m curious to hear an answer from each of you: The most important quality of a healthy relationship is what?
Kaye Callaway: Laughter.
Curtis Callaway: Love.
Alice Baird: Love. And also open communication.
Bob Baird: She took mine.
Alice Baird: I know there’s not a time when I needed to talk when he wasn’t willing to listen, and I hope I was the same with him. So keeping those avenues of communication open. And of course love, always.
Curtis Callaway: And patience. Like I was saying earlier, patience. And just take the time, listen, make sure you understand what’s being said. Because sometimes we jump to conclusions. And just take the time and make sure you understand before you say those words.
Bob Baird: To be able to laugh at one another’s foibles too. That’s important.
What’s your favorite thing about the other person? What’s your favorite thing about Alice? Your favorite thing about Bob? Favorite thing about Curtis? Favorite thing about Kaye?
Bob Baird: Favorite thing? Oh my.
I believe the correct answer is: There’s too many to list.
Bob Baird: Yeah, there are just too many. But my favorite thing about Alice? She’s patient with this old man.
Alice Baird: Well, that’s interesting because I would’ve said one of my favorite things about Bob is his patience.
Kaye Callaway: Short and sweet, kinda like you, Alice, it’s his intelligence.
Curtis Callaway: Her big heart. I would say probably the most amazing thing is, and I don’t know how to explain this to you all. She has a connection with God that I’ve never seen before and it’s amplified since the accident. It’s crazy. I see somebody raising a hand. She has a way with people, and I’ve seen it in many other countries walking through a market. She will change a person’s life with a glance, and I don’t know how she does it. It is mind-boggling, and I’d say it’s an incredible gift and she’s done it to my students. All my students would go, “What is it with your wife? How does she do that?” I’m like, “I don’t know.”
So we know your favorite thing about the other person. What’s your least favorite thing? No, I’m kidding. I’m kidding.
Curtis Callaway: I don’t think I’m going to answer.
They say that opposites attract. I want to know how the other person is not like you, and how that’s a good thing for y’all in the relationship.
Curtis Callaway: Planning. Time management. You name it. It’s a long list.
Kaye Callaway: With him it is musical ability and the creative sense of a lot of things I wish I had.
Alice Baird: I think Bob has the ability to take a very complex idea, and explain so simply in such a way that anyone can understand it. That’s a quality of his that I don’t think I have, but that I admire greatly, is his ability to explain things very carefully. That’s a great quality for a teacher and a writer, and he’s got those qualities.
I want to know what your favorite tradition the two of you have is. What are some of your favorite rhythms of life? What’s your favorite way that y’all are still connecting together right now?
Bob Baird: One of our favorite traditions now, and it has been so for several years that we have our youngest daughter and our son-in-law live in Kalamazoo, Michigan. We spend our summers in Kalamazoo. So that’s one thing that we do together that we thoroughly enjoy doing.
Alice Baird: And we drive there. It takes us several days.He does all the driving. I don’t know if he looks forward to the drive, but I do, because it’s just a great time to be together and visit. So traveling has been a big part of our life for many years. We don’t travel much now except to see family, so that’s one of our traditions that I’m glad we have.
Bob Baird: I just think Alice and I are very at ease with one another, and that is so important.
Curtis Callaway: Agree, 100%.
But, probably one of our favorite things is coffee in the morning, watching the sunrise and cocktails in the evening watching the sun set. We get both at our place. It’s great.
Kaye Callaway: It’s just a thank you in the morning for the day to come and thank you at night for the day you gave us together.
My last question, what would be your answer if someone came up to you who was contemplating marriage and asked, “What would you say is the most important thing to know about a partner ahead of saying, ‘I do’?” Is there a quality that you think is most important to know about that person? Advice you’d give to them as they’re navigating the season of engagement, further getting to know each other?
Bob Baird: I think kindness.
Alice Baird: I don’t think I could do better than that. Kindness.
Bob Baird: Ensure they’re kind.
Kaye Callaway: Yeah, noticing daily to make sure they are kind.
