Bill and Gail Chapman are celebrating their diamond wedding anniversary this year, but they’ll be missing some of those who were present at the celebration 60 years ago, namely news cameramen, reporters and Bill’s 6th grade students from Waynewood Elementary. The couple, both originally from Richmond, met in college. They were introduced by Bill’s sister who lived across the hall from Gail at Madison College (which later became James Madison University).
It was 1959, and William Chapman landed his first teaching job straight out of the University of Virginia. Fairfax County Public Schools had lured him to Northern Virginia with a lucrative annual salary of $4200, offering one of the highest pay scales in the state. He would be teaching at Waynewood, one of two new elementary schools opening that year in an attempt to keep up with the enormous growth of the county.
It wouldn’t be quite accurate to say that Mr. Chapman was there when the doors opened on Waynewood’s first day. Unfortunately, he overslept for the first and only time in his career. Bill more than made up for the lapse by juggling his many roles in the school. There were no funds for specialists so in addition to his classroom duties he also taught art, music, physical education, and helped his students make choices in the library. He even ran an impromptu shop class when he asked his students to bring in sandpaper and shellac to update the hand-me-down desks they’d received from the county—a messy innovation not appreciated by the custodian!
In early fall, Mr. Chapman announced his plans to wed his fiancée, Gail Gresham, on November 25th in Richmond, and his class, intrigued by the romance, asked if they could attend. He off-handedly answered “yes,” never dreaming of the result. Gail visited the class sometime later heightening interest in the impending nuptials. The couple decided it would be fun to invite the students to the ceremony. Chapman’s students chipped in and, with the help of a their parents, chartered a bus for the event. Mrs. Gertrude Gimelli, one of the parents, had media connections and the story was picked up by the newspapers. The Washington Post reported that the 25 year old teacher was “well-liked by his sixth-grade students and their parents….all the girls have crushes on him and all the boys respect him.” The Evening Star said of Gail that “the boys became as enamored of her as the girls were of their teacher.”
The 23 students planned to depart late Wednesday afternoon to attend the 7:30pm ceremony at River Road Baptist Church. The chaperones for the trip were Gertrude and Joseph Gimelli and Col. Hallock Walmsley and his wife Ethel. Later, when the bus did not arrive in Richmond as scheduled, a variety of explanations were given. Some said they started out later than expected, others that Thanksgiving-Eve traffic was heavier than expected. The Chapmans recalled hearing that the students were delayed because they could not find restrooms on old Route 1 (the 71-mile stretch of 95 South between Springfield and Ashland, Virginia would not be completed for another 5 years).
The bride and groom held the ceremony for 15 minutes but then had to proceed. Some of students wept for having missed the wedding, but they did arrive in time to “stand silently like soldiers” dressed in their “Sunday best” and greet the married couple as they exited the church. The students attended the reception at Willow Oaks Country Club where they, “on their best behavior”, went through the receiving line. They enjoyed cake and saw the couple off by throwing rice and streamers and letting “loose with hearty ‘hoorays’”.
The students weren’t the only remarkable wedding guests. Word of the unusual “field trip” had been picked up by national news outlets. Cameramen and journalists were on the scene. The new Mrs. Chapman told a reporter “We had no idea the children would come, even though I sent them an invitation. We were both delighted, though.” While on their honeymoon, the newlyweds watched accounts of their wedding on NBC’s Huntley-Brinkley Report as well as Movietone News. They collected of clippings of the surprising newspaper coverage.
Following their honeymoon and their “24 hour celebrity,” the couple returned to a relative anonymity in Alexandria, VA. Bill continued teaching at Waynewood and Gail worked at the Pentagon branch of First and Merchants Bank. They lived in the Belle View Apartments and kept a small boat at Belle Haven Marina. Bill remembers offering boat rides to his students one weekend– something that would be frowned upon these days. Bill’s later career included elementary principalships, and serving as supervisor of fine arts, and superintendent of schools elsewhere in Virginia. The couple retired in 1998 and reside in Charlottesville. They have three children and ten grandchildren–all very successful–with whom to celebrate their anniversary this year.