home

‹ previous page  1  2  3  4  5  6  7   next page ›

George Duffie’s funeral took place Wednesday morning at Lou-Mac Park. There, Oriental Unite Methodist Church minister Keith Sexton also spoke of George’s “gentle soft cadence.” When he preached, Sexton said, “every word was thought over before it was spoken as if he knew exactly who he was talking to.” As his family observed, the tone was no different from how he spoke in everyday conversation.

“His sermons were just like he was talking to you.”

Keith Sexton praised George’s quiet style and how he “had a great way of saying, ‘no’”. He did it, Sexton said, by saying instead, “Let’s give it a try and see how it works out.”

Sexton also shared the story of what happened when George and Mary’s son, Sommers took what he thought was an unloaded gun to his bedroom and shot a hole through a dresser. When told of it, George said, “Okay” and removed the dresser from the room.One day it reappeared, fixed, without a scratch. Nothing was said. It was, Sexton said, “a gift. A sermon that didn’t have a single word.”

George’s passing struck an especially sad chord for Keith Sexton, who has been at the Oriental church for about two years.

George Duffie, he said, “was my best friend, my mentor, my pastor and a second father.” In what seems like an echo of the Residency Program George set up in South Carolina, the two went sailing together and “on the water, I could share my heart with him and it didn’t matter what I told him, he was always encouraging.”

“There will never be another George Duffie in my life. He helped me find a home in this town.”

Asked on Sunday morning if there was one word to describe George Duffie, his friend Ken Pitts paused before saying, “he was too complicated for that.” He was loving. And caring, Pitts said. But there was grit, too, and times when he did say words that needed saying.

“Seven or eight years ago,” Pitts said, George “was asked to do the ‘Blessing of the Fleet’ over at Hobucken, which he did. And then he spoke of the need for the fisherman over there to quit dumping their sewage. They didn’t like that.”

Similarly, Pitts recalled, “He was on the (Oriental) Planning Board and spoke the truth and they didn’t ask him to come back,” recalled Pitts. “And yet, he’s one of the most loyal citizens this town had.”

New wooden cross in the Fellowship Hall of OUMC. George Duffie built it of lumber from a friend’s boat project.

George Duffie’s work for Oriental United Methodist Church extended beyond the pulpit. In the past few years, he took on several woodworking projects. There was a large cross, for one. And tables, one for the library and more recently, a table more than 11 feet long for the conference room. Around it, in George style, people can talk and work things out.

‹ previous page  1  2  3  4  5  6  7   next page ›

Posted Saturday June 25, 2011 by Melinda Penkava