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[Page H5829]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IN RECOGNITION OF MARY PHILLIPS WHITE GETTYS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
South Carolina (Mr. Norman) for 5 minutes.
Mr. NORMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the life of a
truly great American, Mary Phillips White Gettys, who will turn 99 on
August 6 of this year.
Ms. Gettys was born in Chester, South Carolina, on August 6, 1920,
which was the same year that women gained voting rights. She graduated
from Chester High School, where she was valedictorian of her senior
class. She enrolled in Erskine College and graduated in 1941 with a
degree in music.
Her first job was teaching junior high school in Anderson, South
Carolina, and she later joined WAVES, which stands for Women Accepted
for Volunteer Emergency Service, in 1943. She began her training at
Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, where she
specialized in communications while studying at Smith College in North
Hampton, Massachusetts. She was assigned to the communications office
in the Norfolk Navy Yard in Portsmouth, Virginia.
After achieving the rank of lieutenant, she was tasked with the
complicated task of coding and decoding communications received and
sent by the Naval Command. Her duties included delivering urgent top
secret messages to military leaders, where she would have to strap on
her weapon and be escorted across the yard to deliver the vital
information.
In 1946, Ms. White left the Navy and began working for AAA, the
American Automobile Association, located in Charlotte, North Carolina.
In 1947, she met Tom Gettys, whom she would become engaged to after 3
weeks and married 3 months after their engagement. Little did she know
that she would become the lifelong partner of a man who would
successfully become the Fifth District Congressman of South Carolina,
where he would serve for five terms until retiring in 1974.
They returned to his hometown of Rock Hill, South Carolina, where
they would raise two daughters, Julia Martin Gettys Burchett and Sara
Elizabeth Gettys Pierce. The Gettys were married for 56 years until the
death of Congressman Gettys in 2003.
Mary Phillips Gettys is a true leader in her community and received
many awards, including: Woman of the Year from the First ARP Church,
where she faithfully attended; the Cross of Military Service from the
United Daughter of the Confederacy in 2001; the Quilt of Valor award in
2015, presented by the Quilts of Valor Foundations for veterans touched
by war; the National Award in 2017, presented from DAR, the Daughters
of the American Revolution for Women in American History.
Mary Phillips Gettys is the proud and devoted grandmother of six
grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. She is the epitome of a
gracious and charming Southern lady, and by her life, she has
demonstrated a love for her God, a love for her family, the love of her
fellow man, and the love of her great country.
She is a true American patriot who always has a smile on her face and
has lived her life in true service to her fellow man.
____________________
