--- description: "Like The Notebook" said one nurse title: Couple Married 73 Years Dies Within Minutes of Each Other image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [Newsfeed](/tag/time-section-newsfeed/) ## Newsfeed Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Couple Dies Within Minutes of Each Other After 73 Years of Marriage by [Sarah Begley](/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Apr 10, 2015 4:20 PM CUT by [Sarah Begley](/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Apr 10, 2015 4:20 PM CUT A Kentucky couple died [within minutes of each other](http://www.kentucky.com/2015/04/09/3792927%5Fafter-73-years-of-marriage-kentucky.html?rh=1 "undefined") after being married for 73 years. Bill Wilson, 93, and Lillian Karr Wilson, 89, both Alzheimer’s patients, had been living in separate nursing homes for years when their son Doug got back-to-back calls informing him that his parents had died, Kentucky.com reports. When Doug Wilson told one nurse about the coincidence, she reportedly said, “Oh my god, that’s like _The Notebook_,” the popular Nicholas Sparks book and film in which an elderly couple dies simultaneously. Bill and Lillian were high school sweethearts who married in 1941\. Doug Wilson says the family sees their concurrent deaths as “a blessing.” \[[_Kentucky.com_](http://www.kentucky.com/2015/04/09/3792927%5Fafter-73-years-of-marriage-kentucky.html?rh=1 "undefined")\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3817512/couple-dies-within-minutes/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3817512/couple-dies-within-minutes/"},"headline":"Couple Dies Within Minutes of Each Other After 73 Years of Marriage","datePublished":"2015-04-10T16:20:41.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:18:37.727Z","description":"\"Like The Notebook,\" said one nurse","url":"https://time.com/3817512/couple-dies-within-minutes/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Bizarre"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sarah Begley","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3817512/couple-dies-within-minutes/","name":"Couple Dies Within Minutes of Each Other After 73 Years of Marriage"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"A 100-Year-Old Sex Therapist on Having Good Sex, Then and Now","description":"A practicing sex therapist in New York City, Dr. Shirley Zussman has witnessed everything from the legalization of the contraceptive birth control pill to the AIDs epidemic in the 1980s to the rise of internet porn in the new millenium.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/uJFYIrvP/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-08-20T13:40:15.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/uJFYIrvP.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3817512/couple-dies-within-minutes/","duration":"PT3M13S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3817512/couple-dies-within-minutes/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```