Published: August 20, 2008 10:27 pm      

Hospital bride dies

Taron Lynn Manley Mantooth never complained during the four years she battled Hodgkin’s disease, her mother said.

She didn’t even complain when she was married at Hamilton Medical Center on July 12 instead of having her dream wedding at her church in Chatsworth.

Taron, 25, had a heart full of love for the people around her, telling her parents she was glad it was her, and not them, who was diagnosed with the disease.

But her physical heart may have been worn out by four years of chemotherapy, said her mother, Sherry Manley. Taron died at Hamilton Medical Center Wednesday morning after being hospitalized for what doctors thought was pneumonia.

“She always told us that no matter what happened, she would be OK,” Manley said Wednesday afternoon.

Talking to a reporter about her hospital wedding to husband Travis, Taron was hopeful about their future. Even though she was still going through chemotherapy, she believed she would beat the disease. The couple planned to build a home on land Travis’ family had given to them.

“We want to have kids, natural or adopted,” Taron said then. “We want to be a normal couple.”

Taron had just turned 21 and was attending classes at Dalton State College for a degree in education when she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s.

“She never complained at all, even in the beginning,” Sherry Manley said. “She was my little hero.”

Funeral arrangements for Taron will be announced by Peeples Funeral Home of Chatsworth.