In 1944, Republic Pictures released the movie The Cowboy and the Senorita. It was the first film to feature Roy "The King of the Cowboys" Rogers and Dale "The Queen of the West" Evans. It would be the start of a more than fifty year partnership between them. They made twenty-four movies together, as well as the Roy Rogers Show in 1951 and the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Show in 1962.
At the time they met, Roy was married to his second wife, Arline. (His first marriage ended in divorce.) They were married on July 3, 1936. Roy and Arline were devoted to each other until the time she passed away on November 3, 1946 - just two days before his 35th birthday. He devoted himself to charity work, making more than eight hundred visits to sick boys and girls in the first year after Arline's death.
Dale had been married and divorced two times and was married to her third husband when she met Roy. She offered her sympathy to Roy after Arline's death and told him how much his late wife had meant to her. Her third marriage ended in divorce. She and Roy spent time together after Arline's death and fell in love. They married on New Year's Eve, 1947.
They did have a major difference at that time. Dale was a Christian; Roy wasn't sure he even believed in God. He wondered how God could allow children to suffer. If Dale could explain that to him, he'd go to church. Dale had no answer for him. It was after they'd had an argument after a party that he decided to go to church with the rest of the family the next morning. It was then that he decided to follow Jesus and raise his children to be good Christians.
Their life together was not without tragedy. They had one biological child together, Robin, born in 1950. She had Down Syndrome. She died in 1952, before her second birthday. Dale wrote a book about Robin called Angel Unaware. In 1955, Roy and Dale adopted a half Korean, half Puerto Rican girl whom they named Debbie. In 1964, when she was twelve, she went on a trip with friends from church to visit an orphanage in Tijuana, Mexico. Debbie died in a bus accident. Dale wrote the book Dearest Debbie, with the royalties being donated to World Vision International. In 1952, they adopted a five-year-old boy named Harry. They changed his name to John David and gave him the nickname Sandy. In 1965, he died in Germany while in the army. He'd been drinking and choked to death during the night on his own vomit. Dale wrote another book about a lost child, this one titled Salute to Sandy. Royalties from that book were donated to Campus Crusade for Christ, now known as Cru.
Roy and Dale were committed to their faith and made several appearances at Billy Graham Crusades. Roy encouraged members of his fan club to go to Sunday School every Sunday.
To be continued. . .
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