Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 18, 1994 TAG: 9409200003
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 6 EXTRA EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
When Debra Wingo met Keith Christley, she had met her fate.
``I told my mom he was the one I was going to marry,'' she said.``I'm only 14 years old. My mom thinks I'm crazy.''
Well, nobody ever said love was sanity.
They dated for more than four years before they tied the knot.
Keith Christley, a graduate of Cave Spring High School, proposed (sort of) on Christmas Day, 1973. He presented her with 52 Christmas gifts. Most were boxes full of junk - marble, gravel, paper clips.
One contained a ring.
``I was thinking, `This had better be worth it,''' recalled Debra Christley, who is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School.
They were married in the Roanoke Chapel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Debra Christley, raised a Baptist, had adopted her husband's faith.
They live a life to warm Dan Quayle's heart.
For the Christleys, it seems, the tumult of the '60s and the early '70s hardly happened. ``We were in the world, but not part of it,'' Debra Christley explained. Even now, ``We don't drink. We don't smoke.''
Nor did they, or do they, believe in sex before marriage.
``To me, too many people look at it like going out and buying a car,'' Keith Christley said. ```Try it out and see if you like it.'''
``Who wants a used pair of shoes?'' said Debra Christley.
Their old-time values put them in the minority, and they know it. For one thing, almost all the couples with whom they used to double date have long since split up.
``When we went back to our 10-year reunion I couldn't believe - '' Debra Christley completes the sentence by rolling her eyes. ``Some of them lasted maybe a year. They said, `It didn't work out.' `Somebody else came along.' I feel that they were not in love to begin with, or didn't know what love was all about. ... People nowadays think, `If it doesn't work out, we can get a divorce. If it doesn't work out, big deal.' We don't go for that.''
They have three children - Heather, 17, Holly, 13, and Kami, 8. They live in a house on a mountaintop outside Roanoke they have reclaimed from the brink of the grave, renovating it a piece at a time. The job is still in progress.
Debra Christley spent 10 years as a housewife - ``I always thought I'd be the Beaver Cleaver mom'' - but now works at Lewis-Gale Clinic. Keith Christley works in the mail room of the Roanoke Times & World-News.
They say they are in this for life, and more.
``If something happened to him,'' said Debra Christley of her spouse, ``I feel like I would never remarry. This is serious. I feel like we want to be together forever.''
So what does Debra Christley like about her husband?
The answer comes quickly.
``I love his baby blue eyes.''
by CNB