Frank and Eleanor Turner were married for 65 years, and this week the couple died on the same day, just six hours apart.
The family of the Turners said the couple, both 87, did everything together during their lives and couldn’t stand being apart. The couple’s daughter, Linda Purser, said she is heartbroken to lose her parents but said she feels comfort knowing they passed away together .
“They were born in the same month in the same year. And it just seemed like they did everything close together in their lives,” Purser said, adding, “I felt like when one went the other wouldn’t be far behind, but I had no idea it would be in the same day.”
The couple had been confined to hospital beds after suffering strokes, and were captured by family members in a touching picture taken just four days before their death. Laying side-by-side in separate beds, Frank Turner reached over to grasp his wife’s hand.
Family members said the hospital stay was the first time the couple was apart.
“Whenever I tried to put them into a nursing facility, I wanted them to be together because they couldn’t tolerate being apart,” Purser said.
The couple married on Christmas Eve in 1948. Earlier that year Frank Turner, a World War II veteran, went shopping for a new car and met Eleanor, a secretary at the car dealership.
Eleanor Turner passed away at 4:30 am on Friday, and Purser said she and her brother debated whether they should tell her father, who was also very sick.
We knew that it would upset him and we didn’t didn’t to upset him any worse,” she said.
They would never have the chance. In the early afternoon the nursing home were Frank Turner was staying called and said he went into arrest, dying on the way to the hospital.
After 65 years together, Frank and Eleanor Turner couldn’t spent any more time apart.
