This is Part Two of a two-part series. To read Part One, click HERE.
By Kylie Neel
Galen Turner was a war time veteran during the time in Vietnam and served for the United States Navy for 21.5 years. He was deployed in Beeville, Texas, located at the Naval Air station base at Chase Field in 1966.
Turner and his companions were at a local drive-in restaurant located in downtown Beeville on a late night when he met his beloved Suellen. Canes used to be a hot spot in Beeville, it was where he’d drive up to order and sit in his vehicle with friends to hangout.
Suellen was with her friends at Canes and ended her night by giving Turner a ride back to Chase field because he needed a ride back to the base.
“It was a friend of a friend’s vehicle,” Suellen said. “It worked out well, because Galen needed to get back somehow.”
Turner stated, “I thought that Suellen was dating someone, but once I found out she was single, I asked for her phone number to ask her out.”
Almost immediately following, Turner asked Suellen to go out on a date with him.
“I took her to the local drive-in movie theater in Beeville,” Turner stated.
At the time that they met he was driving a Mustang, and so was she.
”It wasn’t the mustangs that met, but we used to say that,” Suellen joked.
Suellen and Galen dated until he popped the question.
“I asked her to be my wife and I proposed in the middle of May or the beginning of June in 1967 and shortly after that we were married,” he said.
He and Suellen married on Oct. 7, 1967.
Almost immediately, within two weeks, the Turner’s were on their way to Galen’s first duty station in Lemoore, Calif. The couple ended up having a child two and a half years after their wedding day.
The Turners have two children: Galen III, born in 1970, and Christopher Alan, in 1972.
Turner and his wife Suellen spent their war time days taking care of their two boys, and loving each other endlessly, and they still are, 55 years and counting. The Turners reside in Ruston, happily married and proud of their children for what they have accomplished.
