The story of Sam and Carolyn Clemence is a heartwarming tale that begins with two adventure-seeking, civic-minded southern kids who decided to join the Navy and, along the way, found one another.

They met while serving in the Navy at a base in Spain: Carolyn, a nurse eager to begin her career, and Sam, a civil engineer who loved to travel. Fast-forward fifty-six years, and they live at The Cottages, Loretto’s upscale retirement community located on The Nottingham campus.

So, how did they end up here?

Carolyn Clemence discovered she wanted to be a nurse the day her appendix ruptured when she was six years old, and she had to be rushed to a hospital in Richmond, Virginia.

One of the nurses who took care of Carolyn was a former recruiter for the Navy, and she remembers being mesmerized by how she cared for others. “The nurses who took care of me were so kind. I thought, ‘I want to be just like them and take care of people.’ I guess you could say I found my calling at that moment.”

Fifteen years later, in 1960, Carolyn graduated from nursing school, passed her boards, and was eager to enlist in the Navy. Her dad drove her to Newport, Rhode Island, for officer indoctrination, and then she was assigned to Pensacola Naval Hospital in Florida.

Carolyn served there as an ensign and later as a Lieutenant JG, then LT, for three years. The hospital was located on a flight training base, and she remembers one pilot in particular who caught her attention.

“I’ll never forget meeting John McCain. He walked into the hospital for his exam and was so cute. All the nurses were smitten.”

Carolyn pondered her next move after working at the hospital for three years. “Do I want to stay in the Navy, or do I want to keep going? I had requested to go to Vietnam, but because I had back surgery, they wouldn’t send me. Instead, in 1965, they sent me to work on a large Spanish-American Naval Base in Rota, Spain, which in the end worked in my favor because that is where I met Sam.”

Carolyn recalls the long hours, dear friendships, and good experiences she had on base. “There were nine nurses, and the hours were long. We all got along and tried to have fun whenever possible. And then, one day, came the knock on the door.”

While having a cookout at her house with her friends, Sam and his friend knocked on her door to see if anyone would like to play tennis. They had heard from others that the ‘cute nurses’ lived there, and they were in search of partners to play with that day.

“We were in the middle of a cookout, so I told them we couldn’t, but that we would meet them at the Officer’s Club, which we called the “‘O Club” later. Since my mother was visiting, she came with us, and I remember that while Sam and I were dancing at the club, she tried to get me to leave because she wanted to go home early. My roommate took her home because I didn’t want to stop dancing with Sam.”

Sam Clemence was a Naval Officer and one of 10,000 men stationed on the Naval base and served in the Naval Civil Engineer Corps in a Mobile Construction Battalion. Carolyn was one of nine nurses on the base, and she jokes that she cut him out of the herd.

Since their night at the Officer’s Club, they joke about how their union seemed destined. Carolyn said, “My mother was visiting, and we were leaving a bullfight in Porto de Santa Maria, and I saw an officer walking on the side of the road, and I told my mom I was going to offer him a ride back to the Naval Base. It turns out it was Sam—he had gone to a bullfight in Spain with friends and was wandering around town trying to find his way home.”

Sam fondly recalls their courtship and “chance” encounters. “I joked with her that what was really happening was that she was stalking me. Every time I went to play tennis, she would show up ready to play. She later confessed that she would peek out her window around the times I would normally play, so it wasn’t much of a coincidence.” He says with a smile that he didn’t mind that all at all, and he’s so glad she did.

Sam proposed to Carolyn on Thanksgiving Day when they were 27 years old. They married the following year in Carolyn’s hometown of Richmond, Virginia, and in 1968, they welcomed their first child, Daniel.

“After Daniel arrived, I stayed home to be a mother. My daughter arrived soon thereafter, marking the end of my Naval career.”

Carolyn was honorably discharged in 1968, as was Sam in 1969. Thanks to the GI Bill, Sam was able to enroll in Georgia Tech, where he earned his PhD in civil engineering. Sam went on to teach at the University of Missouri-Rolla in Missouri for several years before receiving an invitation from his friend to teach at Syracuse University. He taught civil engineering courses at Syracuse University for 37 years before retiring.

Syracuse University has twice asked Sam to come out of retirement—once to serve as the Interim Dean of Hendricks Chapel for two and a half years and once to serve as a University Ombudsman for a year and a half. Sam said that while he has enjoyed working, he now considers himself officially retired, which is good because he has more time to spend with his partner of 56 years. “We have had an exciting life, and Carolyn is a wonderful partner. We enjoy living at The Cottages and being a part of the Syracuse community here. We consider ourselves to be very fortunate.”