‘I Got On My Knee and Asked Her Again and Put This Big Ring on Her Finger’

BY JE’DON HOLLOWAY-TALLEY | Special to the Birmingham Times

CORNELL AND CHARLOTTE HALL

Live: Pleasant Grove

Married: Aug. 5, 2006

Met: Summer 2005 at their pastor T.L. Lewis’ home in Bessemer. Lewis has since retired as pastor of Bethel Missionary Baptist Church in Pratt City. Cornell was there to maintenance Lewis’s lake.

“I was putting a pipe in the ditch when Charlotte came out to bring me and my brother some water. And when she brought the water out I told her I had been praying for a wife and that she should give me a kiss so I’ll know she’s real,” Cornell laughed. “I was covered in mud, and she said, ‘You’re so dirty, you can’t even come in the house’, and she laughed and walked off, and I said, ‘well blow me a kiss, and she turned back around and blew me one.”

Charlotte had been at their pastor’s house assisting with his wife, who had recently had an aneurysm. “I had taken her to a doctor’s appointment…and Pastor Lewis’s mother was also there and asked me to take some water out to Cornell and his brother,” Charlotte recalled. “Cornell did ask me for a kiss, and I said, ‘Why should I give you a kiss? and I don’t even know you’ and he was dirty… But when I got back to the door to go in the house, I did turn around and blow him a kiss,” Charlotte laughed.

They didn’t exchange numbers that day but Cornell inquired about Charlotte to the pastor “and he talked to me about her for two-three hours,” Cornell said. “He went on and on about how she would make me a good wife and she’d see about me, and that she comes from a good stable family… …he also said she was the type of woman that would help you take care of your mother, and everything he said was right. Over these 18 years we’ve been together, Charlotte has been everything he said. My mother is 92 years old and bedridden, and Charlotte has been there every step of the way.”

At the time, Cornell was a fairly new member at Bethel Missionary Baptist Church, and Charlotte became the reason he went more often. Over a few months, Cornell tried to court Charlotte and mentioned he had an upcoming birthday to which Charlotte agreed to take him out to celebrate.

First date: On Cornell’s birthday, Dec. 12, 2004. Charlotte picked Cornell up from his home in Center Point, and they went to dinner at Bahama Breeze on Highway 280.

“When [she] picked me up she had a gift for me. It was a nice blue jean jacket…,” Cornell recalled. “We talked and ate dinner and Charlotte wanted to know where I was in life because she is very goal oriented. She wanted to know how much debt I had (and I had a lot left behind from my first marriage) … So I told her about [my financial circumstances], and she told me about ways to manage the debt and become debt-free and she told me she had a better plan than the one I had,” he said.

At the time, Charlotte was in a long-distance relationship with someone who lived out of state. She said she’d offered to take Cornell to dinner for his birthday as friends. “I listened to what he had to say, and I told him my expectations [smart financial planning and commitment] and what it would take to make me get out of the long-distance relationship that I was in,” Charlotte said.

The turn: January 2005. “I told Charlotte that if I was going to be in a relationship with her, she can’t be in another one, and when you’re serious we can talk. And by the second date she had a whole [financial] plan for me, and it made good sense… We were at her house [while having the financial discussion] and I told her to excuse me for a moment and I went outside and screamed ‘Thank you, Jesus!’,” Cornell laughed.

A few dates later, “she told me she got rid of the other guy and we got serious.

Six months in we started talking about a wedding and I took her home to meet my mama.”

“I saw that I could have a future with Cornell, so like he said, I cut the other guy off and we started having a serious relationship,” Charlotte said.

The proposal: Summer 2005, at Bethel Missionary Baptist Church in Pratt City. Cornell had a previous addiction and had hit his 12th anniversary of being clean. He had his mother attend the service so that he could present her with his 12-year sobriety chip and proceeded to ask Charlotte for her hand in marriage.

“I asked Pastor Lewis if I could ask Charlotte to marry me at church, and he said, ‘Yeah son, at the end of service, I’ll slow things down and give you the mic’,” Cornell remembered. “I started off talking about the grace of God, and how he kept me clean for 12 years, and that I wouldn’t have gotten there without my mama’s help … so I thanked her and gave her [his sobriety chip], then moved on to Charlotte. I asked her to marry me from the pulpit… I told her what she meant to me and said ‘Charlotte Milton, I got something to ask you, will you marry me?’, and she gave me this ‘little bitty yes’, and Pastor Lewis said, ‘What you say, Charlotte? Somebody give her the mic’ then she came on down to the front of the church and I came down from the pulpit and got on my knee and asked her again and put this big ring on her finger. Then my brother came up and [presented] her with a dozen roses and she said, ‘yes’”.

Charlotte was shy and embarrassed. “I was thinking why is he doing this in public because I’m not a public person,” she laughed. “He did not have to do it in front of the whole church. I was 46 years old, I had never been married before and I was thinking what am I getting myself into?” Charlotte laughed.“ But, I said ‘yes’.”

Cornell has been sober and clean for more than 30 years.

The wedding: At Bethel Missionary Baptist Church in Pratt City, officiated by Pastor Lewis. Their wedding colors were pink, green, and white.

Most memorable for the bride was the unity candle and the sand covenant. The sand covenant symbolizes that the couple will remain a unit forever, said Charlotte. “ … the joining of the sand unifies you and shows that divorce is not an option. We decided early on that we would not separate, and we would see this till the end,” Charlotte said. “And I was taught by my daddy that you marry for good and bad, no matter what, you gotta work it out.”

Most memorable for the groom was a dance performance before his bride walked down the aisle to him. “We had a couple do a dance down the aisle to a song called, ‘You’re The One’, and he [the male dancer] would spin her [the female dancer] around and catch her and lay her back in his arms, and they acted out the whole song and it was just so beautiful. And when they got through, the whole church was crying,” Cornell said. “The pastor said, ‘Now when we dry all this up, we can continue on with the wedding’ the whole ceremony was touching because I understood all [the symbolism, including] Charlotte being passed from her father’s covering to mine… it was so nice. And we jumped the broom.”

They honeymooned in Maui, Hawaii for 10 days. Cornell remembers being panicked by his drowning bride “I was swimming way out in the ocean trying to show my wife how [great a swimmer I am] and all of a sudden I hear Charlotte screaming ‘Help, help’. The waves had carried her too far out, and she was drowning, and I was too far out to get to her right away, and I was fighting trying to swim back to her, but before I could the waves had pushed her back [to shore], and when I finally got to her I said, ‘get your stuff and let’s go,” Cornell said. “And I made her a promise that I would bring her back there one day and when I did, we would be in far better [financial shape] than we are now, and that’s what I did. I took her back for my 65th birthday and I gave her the VIP treatment. I had to do it because the first go-round, she paid for everything, and I was broke. But I more than made up for it.”

Cornell and Charlotte Hall met in 2005 at their pastor’s home in Bessemer. They married a year later. (Provided Photos)

Words of wisdom: “Work together, communicate with each other, and know that when you got married you took vows that made you one. So, you have to work together to get through the hard parts. And keep other people out of your marriage,” Charlotte said.

“Build your marriage on a rock because that rock is Jesus. All other ground is sinking sand,” said Cornell.

Happily ever after: The Halls attend Bethel Missionary Baptist Church in Pratt City where Cornell serves as a minister and Charlotte with the nurses’ guild and minister’s wives committee. They are a blended family with three adult daughters: Jewell Dickson Clayton, the late Tiffany Liddell who passed away from having a seizure in her sleep, and Aisha Crawford. They also have three grandsons and one great-granddaughter.

Charlotte, 65, is a Sprott [near Selma, in Perry County] native, and an East Perry High School grad. She attended the University of Alabama, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing, and is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. Charlotte retired last November from UAB Hospital where she worked as a nurse for 42 years.

Cornell, 72, is a Birmingham [southside] native, a Western [P.D. Jackson] Olin High School grad, and attended Lawson State Community College where he earned an associate’s degree in carpentry and cabinet making. Cornell is a 33rd-degree Mason GIG [Grand Inspector General] and retired in 2013 from the City of Bessemer as a building inspector for 17 years.

“You Had Me at Hello’’ highlights married couples and the love that binds them. If you would like to be considered for a future “Hello’’ column, or know someone, please send nominations to Barnett Wright bwright@birminghamtimes.com. Include the couple’s name, contact number(s) and what makes their love story unique.

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