Story by John Hall • Photography by Chelsea White S
eparated by a year of age, John and Billie went to the same schools. He played football; she was in the drum and bugle corps. Each day after practice, they walked to homes that were
two blocks apart. It’s the perfect setup for a Nicholas Sparks-esque tale that ends with high school sweethearts living happily ever after. But this isn’t that kind of story. Love often is more complex than that.
intervened. She mentioned Billie’s name in passing, sparking an interest unlike any other John had ever felt.
But Billie had a boyfriend – one that John didn’t much care for. John
knew he could take care of that with one phone call: “I think I’ll get a date with her and break them up,” John recalled. Though the call didn’t return the immediate results John hoped, Billie did ask him to call on her again. “I think my mother fell for him,” Billie said. So did Billie. Roughly five months later, the couple was married.
“It was a pleasant relationship and obviously a successful one,” John said. “I guess everything just fell in place naturally, but like they say, ‘Here comes love, then marriage and then pushing a baby carriage.’ The baby carriage never came, unfortunately, but the love and marriage just naturally and normally hit us.
John and Billie never talked. They generally knew about each other, but they never associated with each other.
After school, John and Billie worked in town. Like many young adults,
they were building lives of their own – Billie going in one direction, John in another. Until fate – in the form of one of John’s coworkers –
“So my breakup with her boyfriend was successful.” After 64 years of marriage, they’re still inseparable. Residents of Buckner Calder Woods in Beaumont, the Templetons are where they most want to be – together. As the years have passed, they found depth and strength in their love as they’ve overcome struggles and obstacles. “We’re almost constantly touching one another,” John said. “And even now we sit on the couch, we watch TV, we’re touching. That’s normal to us, to want to be connected.” The two blocks they lived apart from each other as teens is the farthest John and Billie will ever live from each other. Billie describes their time together with one word: “Wonderful.” “It’s still just as great as it was when we married,” Billie said. n
40 Buckner Today • SPRING 2015 ISSUE
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