Younger son, Kylan, is a software instructor who travels on his job.

Singing since 4

Ginger, of Cummings, Ga., has been singing since she was a child.

“I started singing when I was 4 years old in church and school functions,” said Ginger. “Back then, everything happened around church and school. At 10, I began singing at funerals and at 13 I began singing with a quartet. I sang all the way through high school and moved to Nashville right after graduation.

“In Nashville, I started singing with The Speer Family. At the same time, Wally had begun singing with The Tennesseans. The Speer Family was all family except for me. They had a daughter who left the act and I replaced her.”

It was while both Ginger and Wally were singing with separate gospel quartets that they met in Nashville during a performance on a local television show.

“The Speer Family sang on live TV every day at 6:30 a.m. for a 30-minute show, five days a week,” said Ginger. “At night we did concerts within the 200 miles of our coverage area. Wally was with the Tennesseans and they were with another live program. But his group was a guest on our program one morning. That was the first time we met.

He says I asked him out the first time.”

That was in 1959 and the couple was married in 1962. Occasionally, the two groups had worked together in concerts. The first time they performed as a duet was in Toronto.

“We decided that we would make a good team,” said Ginger.

The couple stayed in their separate groups for a year and a half after they were married, before they broke away as a separate gospel duet.

Traveled everywhere