Betty and Herbert Franklin met October 17, 1954, thanks to a buddy. A fellow Air Force firefighter passed Herbert a phone number for a cute girl he knew, and the two went on a date to see Three Coins in the Fountain, a romantic comedy set in 1950s Italy.
The two dated, married, and raised a family over a 20-year military career and a 68-year (and counting) marriage. Herbert transitioned from the Air Force into the Army warrant officer program and served deployments to Saudi Arabia, Greenland, and Thailand before retiring. But the couple has unfortunately had to fight a long battle against Betty’s cancer since 1991.
“My surgeries were done down at Fort Knox in Kentucky, and I had treatment, medication, and so on down there through my surgeon and a primary care doctor, and then I had a recurrence in 1994,” Betty said. “They had me on medication for the cancer at that time and there was a recurrence in the ribcage in 1994, so the doctors down there wanted me to see an oncologist, which Fort Knox had none.”
The doctors recommended Brown Cancer Center in Kentucky, but the pair felt more comfortable in the military medical system. So, instead, they got a referral to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, which, unbeknownst to them, had a unique tool that could help them: The Nightingale House, which functioned like a Fisher House.
“[The staff] were so good with us in the Fisher-Nightingale House,” she said. “Very accommodating and everybody was made to feel like a big family. We had meals around a large dining table together and enjoyed visiting with each other and encouraging each other.”
Seven years later, the family was back to fight another recurrence, but this time with a little girl in tow.
“We had a great-granddaughter. She was a little over a year old, a year and a half, and we were her caregivers at that time for her parents. So, we had her, and she was brought in, just treated like one of the little ones would be, and I had a good room, and everything was provided and taken care of so well.”
That was where they were when they learned about the 9/11 attacks.
“We were in the Fisher House and the great-granddaughter was watching cartoons,” Betty said. “And someone knocked on our door and said, ‘You need to turn on the news.’
“And then we saw the second tower fall,” Herbert said.
The couple was extra grateful to be staying on the base and close to the hospital in the weeks that followed, as the base largely closed to traffic due to security measures.
Over the decades since Betty’s initial diagnosis, she and Herbert have helped their family raise multiple generations and won the battles against stage 3 and stage 4 cancer. Now, to catch a recurrence early, the couple travels to Wright-Patterson every month and stays at the Fisher Houses. The couple thinks they’ve stayed in every room at the first Fisher House on the base.
They credit great doctors and their faith in God for letting them fight successfully for so long.
“Faith in God. He has seen us through so much. And if it weren’t for that, our church family, my little section there. Really and truly. I always tell people ‘Faith in God and good medical care can beat cancer.’ And we’ve been able to help other people thanks to the good care we’ve gotten.”