Teresa Arbuckle, 58, ‘artist’ of dental plates

Joseph Arbuckle Sr. was sitting on a balcony, carving a pumpkin, when he first saw his future wife, Teresa Arbuckle.

She came out of the laundry room, a petite blonde with Paul Newman’s eyes.

“She was just as loquacious as she could be,” Mr. Arbuckle of Cumming said. “She was just a country girl with a good attitude and heart. We were married for 32 years, and I have said on many days I couldn’t believe she would go for someone like me.”

As a young woman, Mrs. Arbuckle competed in beauty pageants in her home state of Tennessee. By the time Mr. Arbuckle met her, she managed a dress shop in Roswell and studied to become a dental technician. She specialized in making dental plates.

“She was an artist,” Mr. Arbuckle said. “She could look at a dental design and sketch it out.”

Mrs. Arbuckle, 58, of Cumming died of cancer on Wednesday at Hospice Atlanta. The funeral will be 11 a.m. Tuesday at Good Shepherd Catholic Church. Byars Funeral Home and Cremation Services is in charge of arrangements.

Though Mrs. Arbuckle dabbled in the pageantry circuit as a teen, her son, Joseph Arbuckle Jr., of Cumming, said he doubts she would have made it a career.

“I think it would have gotten on her nerves,” he said. “She was very down to earth and probably wouldn’t have been cliquish the way so many pretty girls tend to be. She liked people for their personalities, not for superficial reasons.”

Other survivors are a son, Blake Arbuckle of Cumming; her mother, Peggy Myers of Greeneville, Tenn.; four brothers, Ronnie Myers of Palmetto and Phil, Lee and Steve Myers, all of Greeneville, Tenn.; and a sister Tammy Bunce of Afton, Tenn.