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Life story

" Joseph D. Keathley was born in Pikeville, Kentucky on August 5, 1926 to Samuel Joseph Keathley and Alpha (Haynes) Keathley. Joseph was the second oldest child in his family and had three brothers and one sister. While everyone else called him Joe, his siblings and close family always called him Don.

Joe didn’t have much growing up, and he left school early in his teens to work in a coal mine and other odd jobs. When he turned 18, he enlisted in the US Army and fought in the island-hopping campaigns in the Pacific Theater. He recalled sitting in an amphibious assault ship preparing to land on an island when a broadcast announced the dropping of the first atomic bomb.

World War II ended soon after, but Joe stayed in the Pacific for several years, traveling to Tokyo and then Seoul before returning to the United States. It wasn’t long before he reenlisted and then was sent off to Europe, where his first assignment was in Heidelberg, Germany.

Ingrid Helga Keathley (nee Pauls) was born in Danzig, Germany on July 23, 1935 to Wilhelm and Ella Pauls. She was two years younger than her sister, Erika.

Ingrid was just a child during World War II, and she, her mother and her sister hid from the Allied bombing and fighting when the Russian army entered Danzig in 1945. Ingrid’s father had been pressed into the Germany army, but he was fortunately captured by the Americans. After the war was over, Ingrid, her mother and her sister were forced to move to the eastern side of Berlin, where they spent nearly two years before they made the risky trek walking westward to escape the Russian sector. With only the clothes they wore and a basket of boiled eggs for food they claimed had just been gathered for dinner, they charmed, bribed, and evaded Russian soldiers for weeks until they entered the American sector. They finally reached Cologne after traveling over 350 miles.

Ingrid’s mother found out where Wilhelm had been taken, and they reunited with him nearly three years after the end of the war. Ingrid was already a teenager when they settled down to start their lives over in Heidelberg in 1949.

In 1956, Joe met the pretty young German woman named Ingrid and fell hard for her, but she wanted nothing to do with him, handsome as he was. After all, it was bad news for a German girl to date an American GI, but Joseph kept trying to win her over. When Ingrid contracted tuberculosis and was quarantined with other TB patients for several weeks, Joe was so enamored that he didn’t care about the risks to his own health, and he repeatedly visited Ingrid in the hospital when no one else would go near her. Ingrid decided that maybe he was worth a try, and so after she recovered, they dated until she agreed to let him ask her father for her hand in marriage. Joe and Ingrid were married in Heidelberg on December 22, 1956.

After living in Germany and traveling throughout Europe for several years, Joe and Ingrid welcomed their first son, Donald. Soon thereafter they moved to the US and Joe took advantage of the original GI Bill to earn a technical degree from the University of Maryland. He became a systems analyst in the Army’s nascent computer systems command and continued to move from one Army installation to another for several years. Ingrid enjoyed the traveling and they explored all the places they moved to. While stationed at the Presidio in San Francisco, Joe and Ingrid welcomed their second son, Eric, before packing up and moving one last time back to Germany.

After five years in Germany, Joe retired from the Army in 1972, and he and Ingrid settled down in Northern Virginia, where they raised their two sons. They bought a house in 1975 and decided that they had traveled so much in their lives, they would never move again. While they still traveled, they lived in that house until their last days.

The complications from Ingrid’s childhood diseases caught up to her late in life. Ingrid passed away on August 23, 2016 at the age of 81, three months shy of their 60th wedding anniversary.

For nearly 60 years, the shining light in Joe’s life was always Ingrid. They were deeply devoted to each other, and he did everything he possibly could to care for her and make her happy. Though he lived for two more years, he never really recovered from her death. As Joe’s health failed, he comforted himself in part by playing George Jones’ “He Stopped Loving Her Tonight” that he played every night, singing along:

    He stopped loving her today,
    They placed a wreath upon his door,
    And soon they'll carry him away,
    He stopped loving her today

Still broken hearted, Joseph passed away at the age of 92 on November 6, 2018.

Joe and Ingrid worked hard in their lives to make something of themselves and provide their children with opportunities they didn’t have when they were young. Through their determination, dedication, and shrewd planning, Joseph and Ingrid succeeded in making something out of their own lives, and in helping their children become successful as well.

Joe and Ingrid’s two children, three grandchildren, two surviving brothers, and other extended family fondly remember Joseph and Ingrid and will forever keep them in their thoughts and memories. As they did everything in life together, it was fitting that their stories be shared together one last time. "