Douglas and Carolyn Wheeling 
Jennifer and Chris Grandstaff
In celebration of 50 Days of LOVE and the 50th birthday of the “Virginia is for Lovers” theme, Swift Creek Mill Theatre launched a Facebook search in mid-April asking people to write down their love stories and submit them in a contest to win an evening at “The Mill” with dinner and tickets to see “Bright Star.”
On May 5, two stories were selected, one from Carolyn D. Wheeling, who submitted her story on her 53rd wedding anniversary with Douglas Wheeling, April 18, and one from Jennifer C. Grandstaff.
“Our whole life has revolved around Jeff Davis Highway,” Carolyn Wheeling said.
Her story began in the spring of 1965 when she was 17, coming down Jefferson Davis Highway from her waitress job driving a 1964 VW Bug, and she saw a red Plymouth Barracuda with a huge antenna on the back. “The car got my attention. We both stopped at the red light and our eyes met for a brief moment and the light changed to green. We pretended to “drag race.” Of course I had no chance to win, but he let me win and followed me home.”
Carolyn’s friends identified the guy who drove that red Barracuda, and they had a date three weeks later and soon were dating regularly. He proposed at midnight at a party at a friend’s house off of Jeff Davis Highway and they were married nine months later at a little church at Willis Road and Jeff Davis Highway. They even had a business in Chester for 20 years. Carolyn said her parents’ home and his parents’ home were both off of Jeff Davis Highway, and their current home is just off of that road.
Jennifer and Chris Grandstaff, Prince George County residents, have been together for 30 years and married for 20 years. They met when she was 12 and both were students in Petersburg Public Schools. They became engaged in 1997 at Annabelle’s Restaurant in Petersburg and were married in Chesterfield County on April 10, 1999.
Swift Creek Mill is located at 17401 Jefferson Davis Highway in South Chesterfield.
Swift Creek Mill’s next play, “Savannah Sipping Society,” opens June 1. More information about showtimes, go to swiftcreekmill.com.
