A Love That Waited
The story of Dick & Cody Deem
Two Weeks in Shawnee
In the warm glow of a Shawnee, Oklahoma summer, the town’s beloved Dairy Queen buzzed with small-town chatter and clinking spoons dipped into sundaes. The year was 1957, and the local Dairy Queen, one of the first fifteen in the nation, stood as the unofficial gathering spot for teens. Behind the counter was a 16-year-old boy named Dick Deem: tall, shy, and deeply rooted in the rhythms of his hometown. On that particular day, a girl from out of town walked up to the window, and in that instant, something shifted.
Her name was Cody. She was 14, visiting her grandparents, and had spent most of her life moving from place to place as a self-proclaimed “military brat.” From the East Coast to California, Cody had grown up absorbing culture and cosmopolitan life, but Shawnee was home base. It was where her roots ran deep.
What began as a two-week visit quickly became something more. Though she came to see her grandparents, Cody ended up spending those 14 days inseparable from Dick.
When Cody returned home, they kept in touch the only way they could, through handwritten letters. Long-distance phone calls were too expensive, so their conversations unfolded slowly on paper. Over time, as life pulled them in different directions, the letters stopped.
Cody returned to the coasts, eventually settling in Southern California, where she got married and raised three sons. Dick remained in Shawnee, the town where the dusty streets seemed to stretch on forever beneath the wide Oklahoma sky. He became an optometrist, serving in the Army, marrying, and building a life rooted in the same streets where he once drove that powder blue convertible with Cody by his side. He raised a family of his own and stayed closely tied to the town and its people.
Nearly three decades passed.
After his marriage ended, Dick found himself thinking about the girl he had dated for only two weeks. On a quiet impulse, he reached out to Cody’s cousin, hoping she’d know where Cody was and figuring it was worth a shot. Unfortunately, she hadn’t spoken to Cody in years, but when she mentioned that Cody was separated, it was all Dick needed to hear. In that moment, something inside him clicked, and he was determined to find her, no matter what.
Cody was working in a psychiatric unit at a hospital in San Diego when the call came.
“Hi,” said the voice on the other end. “This is a friend from Shawnee.”
She paused. “Who?”
They talked for nearly an hour before it finally clicked and the memories resurfaced: the Dairy Queen, the convertible rides, the shy, older boy. It was Dick.
Later that day, after finishing treatment rounds, Cody’s beeper went off. She picked up the phone.
“It’s Dick again,” he said.
Without missing a beat, she snapped, “I can’t talk to you right now. I’m on treatment rounds. Goodbye.”
Click.
“I felt a little bad,” she later admitted, half-laughing. “So I wrote him a letter.”
What followed were nine months of daily phone calls: long, winding conversations that peeled back the years, revealing how much had changed, and how much hadn’t. Somewhere in the midst of those conversations, Dick did something unexpected. He mailed Cody a cassette tape of a song that reminded him of her: You Haven’t Heard the Last of Me by Moe Bandy.
It was a bold gesture. In the lyrics, he found the words he hadn’t yet said aloud. His hope, his persistence, his quiet belief that this wasn’t just a nostalgic fling.
“It was a brilliant move,” Cody later admitted, “even though I don’t like country music.”
Eventually, Dick flew to California. When they saw each other again, it felt effortless, like picking up a conversation they’d only paused, not left behind for decades.
"And I hope this small bouquet of words are the sweetest one you ever heard."
The Second Chapter
They married not long after. Cody left the coast she loved and moved to Shawnee, a decision that surprised even her.
“My friends thought I was out of my mind,” she laughed.
Together, they brought a bit of California with them. Alongside Dick’s son, Adam, they opened a coffeehouse in Shawnee, it was their own little slice of West Coast culture in the heart of Oklahoma. The coffee shop was ahead of its time in that small southern town, but that's what people loved. With poetry nights, live music, and fresh scones, it became a space for community, creativity, and connection. A new generation’s Dairy Queen.
For Dick, it reignited his love of life. For Cody, it gave her a way to make a place she never expected to love feel like home.
Their love wasn’t built on similarities. Shortly after their wedding, Cody’s sister gifted them an appointment with an astrologer in Maine. The astrologer didn’t hold back.
“Seldom have I seen two people so fundamentally different,” she said. According to the astrologer, Cody was all air signs: creative, spontaneous, a free spirit. Dick, on the other hand, was all earth signs: methodical, precise, and very detailed. But that was the magic. They never tried to change one another, they simply let each other be.
Dick never forgot her. Through all the years, through all the changes, those two weeks in Shawnee stayed with him. For Cody, it was his patience, his quiet devotion, his refusal to let her go that finally won her over.
“He was relentless, I told him to stop calling. He didn’t care.”
Now, decades later, they’ve traveled the world. From Turkey to Scandinavia, China to Africa. They’ve made art, started clubs, thrown themselves into political activism and community work. They’ve built a life that is rich, full, and entirely their own.
But at the heart of their story will always be that summer in Shawnee. A shy teenager behind the counter. A girl just passing through. A moment that, though brief, set the foundation for a love that would take nearly 30 years to fully unfold.
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