ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Thursday, April 25, 1996               TAG: 9604260018
SECTION: NEIGHBORS                PAGE: N-8  EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: FRANCES STEBBINS STAFF WRITER

CHURCH HONORS COUPLES WHOSE MARRIAGES HAVE LASTED A LIFETIME

The traditional wedding march pealed Sunday morning at Ninth Street Church of the Brethren as the procession came down the aisle. Nearby, the Rev. John Huffaker, pastor, and his associate, the Rev. Graham Sowers, prepared to administer the marriage vows.

But there was no bride and bridegroom; they had been there long ago, in Depression or World War II days. Coming down the aisle now were several couples, accompanied by their children.

Ninth Street congregation was having a service to celebrate what may well be a record for long-lived marriages: 17 for couples married 50 or more years in 1996.

The wedding dates range from August 1929 to June 1946. Claude and Beulah Flora, who still get to church occasionally though 92 and 88, are the longest married. Carl and Janie Woodson will celebrate their 50th in two more months.

Glenn and Lucy Wills, wed on a sunny morning in May 1936, and Boyd and Elma Loomis, who took their wartime vows in Rockingham County on a shirt-sleeve day in February, 1943, spoke for the rest of their friends in a recent interview.

The Willses were married in Lucy Bowles' church, Belmont Baptist, by the late Rev. E.D. Poe. Reared in Southeast Roanoke and a resident there ever since, Lucy left Jefferson High School to marry Glenn, who had graduated and was running a filling station on Taylor Avenue. They had no honeymoon, and set up housekeeping in a small duplex. After several years of marriage they had two boys, Douglas and Steven.

Lucy Wills, a homemaker and church supporter all her life, joined Glenn's church. Of a Botetourt Brethren family, he can remember when Ninth Street's present building was occupied in 1923. The gas station business didn't last long, and Glenn Wills spent a long career in the detective bureau of the Roanoke Police Department.

He's a Jefferson High alumni backer. Both Willses are deacons at Ninth Street Church. Lucy Wills' friends said the church's weekly potluck suppers that have brought some new members in "couldn't run without her food and organization."

Huffaker called her "an evangelist who can tell people why she loves her church." She was a food service employee of Roanoke City Schools for many years after her sons were grown.

The Loomises, remembered by many Brethren for their years as coordinators of disaster volunteers, met in Washington while both were working for the government during World War II. She was from the Harrisonburg area and he from Louisiana. Elma Loomis' sense of humor comes through as she recalls, "I had heard that if you weren't married by 25, you'd be an old maid. Well, I got married just before my 25th birthday." Boyd Loomis was five years older.

Wartime gas restrictions required most of the wedding party and guests to ride buses to Elma Emswiler's home in Rockingham County for the Loomis marriage, in which about 30 guests crowded the house. Boyd, a Presbyterian, became Brethren, and the couple has been active in Ninth Street for nearly 50 years.

They have three children. Boyd's work years were spent in the poultry feed business and as a General Electric employee. Elma taught both in public schools and in the church, where the Loomises also are deacons.

Asked, as is customary, how they stayed married so long, the Willses and Loomises provided answers as varied as their lives. Said Glenn Wills: "I couldn't have done better." Responded his wife, "I guess we learned to fuss well. We always enjoyed each other's company even in bad times."

Quiet Boyd Loomis just said, "Love." Talkative Elma summed it up: "I don't know anyone more patient, loving or kind in the church or family."

Sowers, the associate pastor of 66 who can boast a long marriage also, said the wedding vows renewal service with special music was an outgrowth of Golden Age Club activities. The church has an active monthly program for its senior adults, including trips, speakers and socials. About half the 17 long-married couples are regulars in the club.

LENGTH: Medium:   77 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  PAUL L. NEWBY II/Staff. Two couples who have been 
          married more than 50 years and took part in the celebration at Ninth
          Street Church of the Brethren were Edgar and Nellie Sink (standing 
          and sitting left) and Jack and Allene Mills.