She remembers the day they had their first date.

It was Sept. 4, 1972 and they went to Cheaha State Park together, making stops at Lake Chinnabee and Noccalula Falls, taking pictures and just getting to know each other.

She remembers, too the date he was hired by the Talladega Police department, that was in 1952, and, of course, their wedding date of Jan. 9, 1974.

But these days, Doris Horn’s husband, Lewis, doesn’t remember these things or much else.

He’s 85 now and she, a spry 82 who could pass for a decade or more younger, both physically and mentally.

Time hasn’t treated her husband as well as it has her. Horn was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2006 and the disease is taking its toll on him.

“You just have to accept it,” Mrs. Horn said. “Learn to take things the way they are.”

Since realizing that she couldn’t take care of her husband in August, 2006, Mrs. Horn agreed to place Horn at National Health Care in Oxford.

She made the drive from her home in Munford just about ever day and still goes often, but her husband has gotten to the point where she doesn’t think he remembers her visits.

“He doesn’t remember my name every time now, I tell him who I am,” she said. “And five minutes after I leave, I don’t believe he know I’ve been there.”

After her husband started having trouble speaking, Mrs. Horn said she suspected Alzheimer’s.

“He would get his words mixed up,” she said.

And when they would go somewhere he should be familiar with, he wouldn’t always remember which way to go, she said.

Mrs. Horn has tried to keep her husband stimulated, taking him stuffed animals and other items, even taking his dog to visit one time.

“But he’s forgotten about even having a dog now,” she said.

The Horns met after both had lost their spouses, both had been married 24 years.

Someone in the Talladega Police Department where Horn was an officer suggested he “go see Doris” one day, Mrs. Horn said.

“And one day he just called me,” she said.

The two had never met, but Mrs. Horn agreed to the date to go to Cheaha.

It was two years before they were married, and the had the ceremony before Bible study at their church on a Wednesday night.

Horn continued working as a police officer until retiring in January, 1978, putting in a total of just under 26 years in the department.

Before becoming an officer, Horn drove a cab in Talladega.

“They say he just kept hanging around the police department until they hired him,” Mrs. Horn said.

During his police career, she said her husband “was always ready to go to any scene. He loved it.”

Through the years, both Horn and Mrs. Horn became auxiliary officers and worked races at Talladega Superspeedway.

“We worked 41 straight races,” Mrs. Horn said.

Mrs. Horn recalls meeting a few celebrities during those years. Lonnie Anderson and Burt Reynolds, along with Dale Earnhart are a few of the famous folks she encountered during the race duty.

Working the races was something she and her husband truly enjoyed, she said.

Through the journey with Alzheimer’s, Mrs. Horn has stayed busy, and spends most weekdays at the Munford Senior Center working with others on quilts and other projects.

She likes to remember the good years she and her husband had together, and remember the way her husband served his community.

She still tries to connect with her husband when she visits, but the smiles and words are coming less frequently from him, she said.

Sometimes, he seems to get upset when she visits, but there are still times he will say her name.

“He doesn’t carry on a conversation at all,” she said. “But I try. It’s a disease that you don’t know from one day to the next what it will be like. That’s what I would tell people. It just changes all the time.”