VIDALIA &8212; While sitting together on their front porch, 77-year-old Jack Davis and his wife, Ruby, 74, recalled the years they courted and the year they were married.

Though they said they look back now and realize the Lord&8217;s gifts to them, Jack and Ruby remembered life wasn&8217;t always easy.

Jack is a black man who married Ruby, who is bi-racial.

&8220;I had been teased by both whites and blacks ever since I was 10 years old and in school,&8221; Ruby said.

Ruby went to school at the Concordia Parish Training School in Vidalia.

&8220;School was tough because I was picked on by both students and teachers.

Naturally, I stood out,&8221; Ruby said.

&8220;Whites didn&8217;t want me to be white and blacks didn&8217;t want me to be black.&8221;

After her mother died in 1946, 13-year-old Ruby moved from her home on a plantation in Plymouth, La., and went to live with her godfather on what is now Fifth Street in Vidalia and worked in his caf/ on Louisiana Avenue, now Martin Luther King Street.

Jack said he had been interested in Ruby for several years but Ruby did not feel the same way until the year they were married in 1954.

&8220;I remember the first time I really took notice of him was in the caf/,&8221; Ruby said.

&8220;He took my hands and began to file my nails. I remember how kind and gentle he was.&8221;

Ruby and Jack were married in May, 1954, in the back of the caf/, just before Jack took a job with the levee board.

&8220;I had promised Ruby I wouldn&8217;t marry until I got a job and I had to wait until summer before the board was hiring,&8221; Jack said.

But life after marriage still wasn&8217;t easy for Jack and Ruby.

Once, while stopped at a white-owned gas station, Jack and a cousin were chastised by the owner.

&8220;He wanted to know why a white girl was riding with two black men,&8221; Jack said.

With the passage of time, the racial prejudice has become less of a problem for the couple.

They are well-respected within their church, Young&8217;s Temple Baptist, where Jack is a deacon.

The Davises have eight children, all high-school graduates and two of which are college graduates.

They are the proud grandparents to 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.