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T

he hardest thing to get George Duffie to talk about, says his friend Greg Piner, was George. In recent days, George’s friends have been talking about him. About the retired minister’s gentle, but knowing, spirit. About his love of fishing and sailing, and his sail boat, “Merry Mary” and its namesake, his wife, Mary.

George Duffie

They talked a lot about the encouragement he gave others. And his sly sense of humor delivered with a cadence like a sweetly cast fishing line. Barely a ripple of a smile, as hook, line and sinker were planted with precision.

George Duffie, a retired Methodist minister, and avid sailor and fisherman, died Saturday June 18. He was 76 and left behind his wife of 52 years, Mary, three children, Luther, Sommers and Alyson and 8 grandchildren.

George and Mary Duffie had spent Friday night on board “Merry Mary”, their Tartan 34. They’d traveled up to Broad Creek on Friday in advance of Saturday’s Summer Solstice race. They’d attended every one of the Whortonsville regattas for almost a decade. He was looking forward to this one in particular because there were a record 4 Tartan 34’s registered.

George and Mary Duffie at the 2009 Whortonsville Yacht and Tractor Club Summer Solstice Regatta.

But overnight Friday, George complained of not feeling well and after a Saturday morning dinghy ride to shore, they drove to the hospital in New Bern. Several hours later, while the race was going on, George Duffie passed away.

As the word spread Saturday, some took solace in noting how George had spent his last day preparing to go sailing, on the boat he loved, near the waters he knew by hull and fishing rod since he was a young boy.

George and his mother, 1935.

George Duffie, Jr was born in 1935 in Rock Hill, South Carolina where his father was a Methodist minister. In the summers, he visited Oriental as it was the hometown of his mother, Audrey Midyette Duffie. The family had a cabin near what is now the corner of High St and South Avenue — a waterfront spot his mother sold upon returning one year to find much of the land eroded by a storm. (A mule was used to winch the home to a site a block away, a process that took much of a summer.)

George with his parents and younger brother and sister.

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Posted Saturday June 25, 2011 by Melinda Penkava