Erskine Alumnus Honored by Retired
Presbyterian Clergy
Retirement can be the beginning of
great things, and Erskine College alumnus Dr. Joseph M. Gettys, better
known as "Dr. Joe," whose autobiography, My Cup Runs
Over, is subtitled "Life is full, Life is fun," offers
an example of just how good retirement can be.
Gettys was recently honored by the
Association for Retired Ministers at the 2000 convention of the Presbyterian
Church USA, according to a June 14 article by Jennifer Brown in the
Clinton Chronicle.
Gettys, who grew up in York County,
"enjoys the irony of the story" that he and his wife Mary
Louise, both South Carolina natives, should have met in New York,
where both were studying at the Biblical Seminary.
Gettys knew from his Erskine experience
that he "wanted to teach the Bible to college students,"
and went on to earn a doctorate in philosophy from New York University
and even pastored a church in the Bronx. He and his wife started their
family in New York. The couple recently celebrated their 64th anniversary
and have three children– Ann, Joe, Jr., and Jane–six grandchildren,
and one great grandchild.
A member of the Erskine College
Class of 1930, Gettys’s long and fruitful career spanned Christian
education, pastoral ministry, and college teaching and administration.
He served as minister of education at the 3,000-member First Presbyterian
Church in Dallas, Texas; taught at Queens College in Charlotte, N.C.
as well as at the School of Presbyterian Education in Richmond, Va.;
and served from 1956-74 as professor and academic dean at Presbyterian
College in Clinton. Prior to his retirement he served as interim pastor
of 22 churches.
But Gettys’s award was for "distinguished
service after retirement."
"A 93-year-old has to slow up
sometime," he told the Clinton Chronicle. Since retiring
in 1974, Gettys has served as interim pastor of 14 churches and as
organizing pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Greenwood,
which now has 420 members. He has also added two books to the list
of 25 he wrote before retirement. While he may have slackened his
pace a little, he has hardly consigned himself to a porch rocker.
Six of the 11 Gettys siblings
attended Erskine College, and Gettys established a scholarship in
his family’s name at Erskine as well as at Presbyterian College,
where his portrait, the only one of a non-president, hangs in the
school’s administration building.
His influence with young people,
evident in his career as a college teacher and dean, continued through
his service in interim pastorates. Jeri Parris Perkins, current chaplain
of the Presbyterian Home in Clinton, where Gettys and his wife live,
was one of the young people to whom he ministered while serving a
church in Spartanburg. Perkins later received the Joseph M. Gettys
Scholarship at Presbyterian College. Now Gettys volunteers as an assistant
to Perkins, conducts services in his home and in local churches, tends
his garden and plays golf (he says he shoots his age or a little under).
His daughters accompanied him
to the Presbyterian Church USA convention held June 1-4, where he
received his award in person from the denomination’s Congregational
Ministry Division. Church official Charles Elliott said of Gettys,
"His record of ministry should inspire others who long for life
after retirement."
