farragutpress

‘Still my Valentine’ after decades of love

Morning Pointe couples, three, married 70, 69, 68 years

February 12, 2025 by Tammy Cheek

KNOXVILLE — Three Morning Pointe Assisted Living Knoxville residents at Westland Drive are spending Valentines together, even after 68, 69 and 70 years.

Don and Helen Baxter have been married for 68 years; Houston and Odence Seat for 70 years and Bob and Barbara Mock for 69 years.

Houston and Odence

”We’ve been together through it all,” Odence said about her life with Houston.

The Seats will be celebrating their 70th wedding anniversary this year. The couple met in Professor J. Ridley Stroup’s Bible class at Lipscomb University. “We were good friends, and I only went to college two years,” said Odence, a Petersburg, Tennessee, native while Houston is a Donaldson, Tennessee, native.

“He graduated from Lipscomb — he had a degree in accounting — and then he had to go into the Army for two years,” she added.

Odence remembered she was charmed by Houston’s good looks “and sweet disposition,” and Houston felt the same about Odence.

However, the romance did not start until after he was in the Army.

“He worked his way through college at Kroger,” Odence said. “So, therefore, we did not date a whole lot then. But when he went into the service, we started writing regularly.

“Then after he got out of the service, after his two years of service … we got engaged in September and got married the fourth of November (1955),” she said. “We waited until he had a good job.”

Odence was 23 and Houston was 25 on their wedding day.

While living in Nashville at that time, he was hired as an accountant with International Harvester Company. A year-and-a-half later, IHC moved its offices to Memphis, but Houston went to work for the IHC dealership in Nashville and worked there for 22 years.

After that business sold, Houston and his cousin bought a furniture store in Nashville, ran it for about seven years then Houston went to work for Tennessee Department of Human Services for 23 years.

“When we were married, I was working for an insurance company … now American General … a secretary,” Odence said.

“We had our daughter the first year we were married, and then I went back to work after I had her. Five years later, we had a son,” she recalled. “I quit work at that time … I stayed at home until (her son) was 3 years old.”

Then, “I started working at the kindergarten part-time at our church,” Odence added. “After two years, I became the director of the kindergarten, and I worked there 18 years.”

When she turned 51, Odence began working at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, doing medical transcription until she was 72 years old, when she retired. But she returned to the USDA, working part time until she was 82.

“Church was always big for us,” Odence said. “We both had our hobbies that we liked to do. “He liked to do woodworking and play music … he can play the piano, guitar … recording music. I loved to sew and we had lots of good friends.

“We had a little dinner club we were in for years. I think we stayed busy. I think that’s why things were good for us.”

She also attributed their long marriage to their being older and both had been on their own before they married.

Bob and Barbara

“We’ve had a good life,” Bob said. “Like any couple, we’ve had our ups and downs …”

“But we stayed together,” Barbara added. “We’ve really loved one another.”

Friends from the start, the Mocks were only 15 when Bob, seven months’ older, and Barbara met in their church’s youth group in Indianapolis.

“I think we were sophomores in high school,” recalled Barbara, now 89.

“I was attracted to her, and I had prayed for a young girl for me to meet,” said Bob, now 90. “I’m from a broken family, and I was lonely. I wanted some female companionship.”

“I was fun-loving and outward in my expression with friends,” Barbara said. “And, like he said, he was looking for a friend.”

“We were young, not able to drive,” Bob said. “Many times I took her home on my bike.”

“I sat on the bar,” she said. “But his arms were around me so that’s not bad.”

The Mocks started dating as sophomores, but then “we were getting too serious in my opinion, so I broke it off because I knew there was no way I could get really serious with a girl because I had goals of going to college,” Bob recalled.

“While he was in college, he was in Michigan,” Barbara said. “... He went off to college every eight weeks, earning his degree in engineering.”

But he still thought of Barbara. “Sometime during my junior year, I called her and asked her for a Coke date,” Bob recalled. “By this time, she was pinned (a fraternity term meaning the stage before engagement) to another guy.

“(Her then boyfriend) was going to the University of Kentucky,” Barbara recalled.

“But she went out with me on the Coke date, and I won her back,” Bob said “I eventually pinned her myself.”

“I didn’t go to college,” Barbara said. “I took all the professional classes I could in high school, ,,,.”

The couple then married on June 30, 1956. “We’ve made a good combination,” she said. “I liked to have fun … and he was serious, determined to get his education and that meant he was going to be my husband provider. “

He graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering in a co-op program from General Motors Institute, now known as Kettering University, in Flint, Michigan.

But “as soon as I got out of college, I got into computers,” Bob said. “I was a programmer. I retired from IBM.”

Before his retirement, “we’ve lived coast to coast,” he said. They also had a six-month assignment in Stockholm, Sweden.

The Mocks have two children, Robert and Michelle, four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

Don and Helen

Don and Helen, both 91, who have been married for 68 years, met at a bowling banquet in college, each with other dates.

“We sat across from each other,” Don recalled.

“We went to the same high school (in Newport-News, Virginia), and he dated a friend of mine, so I knew who he was,” Helen said. “He was pretty good looking. He was tall.”

“I liked what I saw,” Don said about Helen. “Attractive, beautiful.”

He asked Helen out on a date, but she declined … twice.

“I had other plans,” she said.

Still, they became good friends.

Later, Don’s persistence came through, she gave in and they started dating in 1964. Two years later, he proposed on Valentine’s Day. “It was snowing,” he recalled.

At the time, Don was attending Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, and she was working in the shipyard credit union.

“When we got married, he was still in college. He said, ‘When I graduate, you can stop working.’ So I took him at his word and I stopped working. I stayed home.”

After college, Don attended Virginia Biotech Innovators (now Virginia Tech) in Blacksburg, Virginia, then transferred to Old Dominion University, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in business management.

Then, he worked at the Newport-News Shipping and Dry dock Company for about 10 years before he got an “offer I couldn’t refuse” to work for TVA’s nuclear program and U.S. Department of Defense in Oak Ridge about 10 years, Don said.

Afterward, he returned to Newport-News to take care of his family until 1990 then came back to Knoxville to live close to their daughters.

Around that time, Don said he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s and Helen was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and needed care.

The Baxters have two children, Debbie and Cindy, and five grandchildren.

Even after 68 years, “it’s been great,” Don said about their marriage. “I wouldn’t trade her for anything. She’s still putting up with me. …”

Helen’s advice for a long marriage is: “Be understanding. Everyone is different, and you can’t change them.” Also, “trust each other; be willing to compromise.”

Among Don’s advice is: “Don’t think you’re going to get with somebody and change them” and “respect one another.”