Jerry Paul Youmans always seemed like such a good catch. He was sharp, sweet and a heck of an athlete.

Yet here he was, almost 60, never having married.

It just didn't add up, Anne Youmans — then Anne Williams — thought at their 40th high school reunion. Afterward, she and Mr. Youmans kept in touch. They realized they shared a love of the Georgia mountains. Both had filled their homes with antique furniture. They even had the same Williamsburg flatware.

So more than four decades after an uneventful first date — when Mr. Youmans was a fullback for Hapeville High School and she was cheerleader — they went on a second. "We stayed up until 4 a.m. talking," Mrs. Youmans said.

Mr. Youmans would propose. Then, a couple months before their wedding date, he called Williams to say she might want to rethink the nuptials. "I thought 'Oh, here it is, he's got cold feet.' "

Instead, Mr. Youmans had lymphoma. The two vowed to beat it — together.

The result was what friends and family describe as the happiest years in Mr. Youman's life. He built his dream cottage in Big Canoe, reveled in his new grandchildren and traveled the world with the woman he wed in 2002.

"He did more in the last 10 years than he did in the previous 55," said Jimmy Wall, a golfing buddy who has known Mr. Youmans since the fourth grade.

Mr. Youmans, 67, died Monday in his Big Canoe home after months of battling liver and stomach cancer. The remains are being cremated. Cagle Funeral Home is handling the arrangements. A memorial service is planned at 11 a.m. Aug. 15 in the Big Canoe Chapel in Big Canoe.

Mr. Wall said Mr. Youmans was the only one in their group of friends in Hapeville who lived in a house, not an apartment. His front yard was the football field until his parents began to complain they were chewing up the yard. "That's when Jerry thought of the orginal idea of slow motion football. We'd go half speed. Cars would come by and say 'What are they doing?' "

Mr. Youmans developed a hard work ethic early, helping the family collect payments for The Atlanta Journal newspaper, beginning at age 3 or 4, said his brother, Harold Youmans of Vinings.

Later, Mr. Youmans would learn how to invest those dead presidents. A 35-year veteran of the Doraville GM plant, he played the stock market with skill.

In retirement, he took up golf. But there was something missing. And everyone knew he'd found it after that high school reunion. Said his longtime buddy Mr. Wall: "He talked about her so much I half thought she'd have wings."

Even so, Mrs. Youmans said she wasn't sure it was going to work. She, after all, was recently widowed. And he'd never been married.

"I think God just said 'They need to rescue each other,' " she said. "He put a smile back on my face."

The only thing that took some adjusting was Mr. Youmans' passion for sports. An Auburn University alumnus, he would watch every football game. And she had trouble stomaching his favorite show — ESPN's "Pardon the Interruption." "I'd say 'They're just screaming at each other.' "

But in almost every other way, he was made to marry, Mrs. Youmans said. He loved to watch classic movies and travel — they would go to France, Scotland and Hawaii. Most of all, he cherished time with his six grandchildren at the Southern Living cottage they built in Big Canoe.

"He was 'Poppy,'" Mrs. Youmans said. "They loved him to death."

Toward the end, when Mr. Youmans was in a coma, his wife would turn on "Pardon the Interruption" — that show she hated — so he could hear it.

"He just smiled," she said. "He knew what I was doing."

Other survivors include a brother, Harold Youmans of Vinings; and three stepsons, Scott Williams of Annapolis, Md., Keven Williams of Arlington, Texas, and Todd Williams of Atlanta.