Hospital helps couple with surprise vow renewal
Tufts get celebration their health would have denied them.
A pair of nurses and a hospital chaplain helped a local family surprise their parents with a vow renewal ceremony when health challenges got in the way of the couple reaching their 50th wedding anniversary.
Last fall, Dale Tufts was at Kettering Health Main Campus ahead of surgery for his battle with lung cancer. His daughters, Jennifer Tufts and Jessica Walling, wanted to do something special.
Dale was not doing very well, and one of the sisters let their nurse know that their father and mother, Frances Tufts, were supposed to be celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary in May. Dale and Frances were married on May 4, 1974 in Piqua, where they were lifelong residents.
The family had been planning on surprising both their mom and dad with a vow renewal, and the sisters wondered if a renewal could be arranged at the hospital ahead of a surgery for Dale.
“They told dad that he had to go to hospice that day, so I said, ‘Jennifer, let’s talk to the chaplain and see if they can put something together,’” Walling said.
The nurse, Michaela Yinger, and her colleague, Silvia Hernandez, started working on it. They got in touch with Chaplain Kevin Gill Walter, who was coming onto shift that evening.
They organized the ceremony as if they were planning it for their own parents, Walling said. The sisters said the staff was “phenomenal.”
Yinger and Hernandez were able to help organize the vow renewal ceremony within three hours with help from Walter, who put together a program for the Oct. 30, 2023, ceremony.
“We just looked at each other and (decided) we have to do whatever we have to do to make this happen for them,” Yinger said.
While they were planning the ceremony, the family went shopping for new wedding rings, because Frances’ wedding rings had been stolen earlier in their marriage.
Before the ceremony, Frances told them how meaningful it was for her to have her own wedding band again.
“Before we could even start, she just lost it,” Jennifer said.
Yinger and Hernandez also got a nice shirt for Dale to wear so he wouldn’t be in hospital garb during the vow renewal ceremony.
“We even got a doctor’s order to take him down to the chapel,” Hernandez said.
This vow renewal was the first one Walter had done in his role as a hospital chaplain. “Something I’ve learned with health care,” he said, “is there’s always a first time for everything.”
Later that same day, the vow renewal was held in the chapel at Kettering Health Main Campus. Family members were able to make it, including a grandson in the military who flew in.
It was a brief ceremony, but emotions were strong, Tufts and Walling said.
Frances died unexpectedly on Nov. 10, 2023, from a heart attack. Dale died on Dec. 24, 2023.
“They couldn’t live without each other. They were one,” Walling said.
The family continues to be grateful for the nurses and chaplain who stepped in to help.
“They made their dream come true before they died,” Tufts said.