I had the pleasure of sitting down with Arden and Leslie Showalter one lovely spring morning. It was the first time I sat down with Arden for a visit, which is surprising, since she’s my diagonal neighbor. We had a wonderful time, lots of love and laughter filled the room. Stories of Arden’s youth and the trick to raising five successful children were the main topics of the conversation. 

Leslie, is the second child of five, and the only one that lives in Dallas. Her older sister, and younger brother Shelley and Bart live in Colorado and Buzz and Malcolm live in Boise, Idaho. All are very successful, but more importantly, all of them are very close. In the span of an hour, Leslie spoke with her sister, and Arden had two phone calls from the boys. A mother can only dream of such attention!

Arden certainly does not require a lot of attention. She’s busy in her own activities. She walks Scruffy daily (her adorable black schnauzer mix), enjoys working in the yard, draws, is an avid reader and is a season ticket holder for SMU Basketball games. Why SMU basketball? Larry, Arden’s husband, was on the SMU Basketball Team in college, “back in the day when they were in the final four.” Arden was a stay at home mom while the kids were young, but later became the Director of the career center at SMU. She had the best of both worlds, stay at home mom and a rewarding career too! Larry was very proud of her. Which led her to tell me the story of how they met.

During their freshman year, Larry asked Arden out on their first date. “It wasn’t until four years later, when they were seniors, that Larry asked for a second.” Thank goodness Arden didn’t give up, they were married 59 years.

During the first thirty years of the marriage, they called University Park home. However, when it came time to downsizing, Larry and Arden decided to move to the M Streets. Afterall, this was home for Arden. Her parents lived at 5219 Monticello in 1934 when Arden was born (I would speculate they were the original homeowners). 

Now, after living in the neighborhood since 1990, there’s no other place Arden would call home. To her, “it feels like a community” and she loves it. She has friends close by (some she’s known for seventy-five years!) and Leslie down the street. She walks scruffy to the park and enjoys the familiarity of the neighborhood. Speaking for all her neighbors, she’s a welcome sign of familiarity for us too!