“Celebrating Life’s Stories” is the 2018 theme for National Skilled Nursing Care Week (NSNCW), formerly known as National Nursing Home Week. Today we honor Don and Thelma Turner.
Don and Thelma Turner are a happily married couple that share a room to this day. They have been married 43 years, have 3 children, seven grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. Donald was born in 1941 in Versailles Kentucky. Among the many hats he wore he drove a school bus, was a Master Carpenter, a Deacon of the church, and an Ordained Minister. If this weren’t enough he was also a self-taught skilled musician who played in many gospel groups and spent several years as a state policeman. Don has been inducted into Signature Health Care’s Hall of Fame.
Thelma was born in 1935 in Madison County Kentucky. Raised between Madison and Fayette County her dad was a sharecropper and according to Thelma, went wherever he could get work. She says that’s how it was back then as work was not plentiful. Her occupation was a shipping clerk at Grand McNally for over 20 years. She was over the GMC Marion packing line. She says she saw all kinds of dictionaries some of which you wouldn’t believe. One of which she describes was so big that most people could not lift it, but she says “being a farm girl as I was I was able to pick it up.” She also enjoyed sewing. She has sewn dresses for herself and her daughter. Thelma also enjoyed church very much. She says her favorite thing was getting into anything that the church was doing.