Category: 1937

James Herbert Gailey was born in Atlanta, Georgia on October 17, 1916 and died peacefully in his sleep on October 17, 2015. During his 99 years, he was a scholar, theologian, educator, social activist and environmentalist.

Published in The Times-News on Oct. 21, 2015

Guyte Pierce McCord, Jr., 100, World War II and Korean War Veteran, Florida judge and civic leader, and devoted father and leader of his church, passed away quietly on March 12 at Westminster Oaks.

McCord served as a Judge in the First District Court of Appeal of Florida from 1974 to 1983, and as Chief Judge from 1977-79. Prior to that he was a Circuit Judge in the Second Judicial Circuit of Florida for fourteen years and was elected statewide to be chairman of the Florida Conference of Circuit Judges in 1972.

He was a lifelong member of the First Presbyterian Church, serving at times as Ruling Elder and Chairman of the Board of Trustees.

McCord was the loving husband for more than sixty years of Laura Elizabeth (Betty) Mack, until her passing in 2000. Betty is beloved by all as the founder of Springtime Tallahassee and a leader in development of the Tallahassee Museum of History and Science.

McCord was also the loving partner in marriage of Elizabeth Rogers Green for ten years until her passing in 2012, daughter of the distinguished Florida State University teacher-scholar and namesake of William Hudson Rogers Hall.

Throughout his career, McCord followed a life of public service in the generous spirit of his mother, Jean Patterson, and his father, Guyte McCord, Sr., who served as clerk of the Florida Supreme Court for twenty-five years, and who, as mayor of Tallahassee, founded its commission-manager form of government.

McCord attended Davidson College and the University of Florida for AB and JD degrees and worked during the last three summers of those years as a ranger in Yosemite National Park. He began law practice in 1940, but was commissioned Ensign in the United States Naval Reserve in 1942 and served on active duty in World War II until 1945. He was recalled to active duty during the Korean War. All of his duties were in Naval Intelligence. McCord was later promoted to Commander and retired after twenty-two years of service.

Prior to his appointment as Circuit Judge, McCord was Leon County Prosecuting Attorney followed by assignment as Assistant General Counsel for the Florida Railroad and Public Utility Commission. In Community Service, he was president of the Murat House Association, Inc., from 1967-69; he served on the Board of Directors of the Florida Heritage Foundation from 1969-70; and he was a member of the Tallahassee Kiwanis Club since 1941. He also was a long-standing member of the President’s Club of the Florida State University Foundation.

Judge McCord is survived by a daughter and two sons by his wife, Betty. His daughter, Betsy Kelly, an artist in Rockville, MD, studied at Agnes Scott before embarking on a career in arts education and raising a family with her husband, John W. Kelly, retired senior analyst at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

His son, Guyte Pierce III, a Captain in the Navy Reserve, received his BS at Washington and Lee and his JD at Florida State and practices law in Tallahassee. In 2006, he and his wife, Beverly B. McCord, joined in the endowment of a scholarship fund at Florida State College of Law that is awarded annually to meritorious law students in the name and honor of his father and grandfather.

His son, Edward LeRoy, studied at Princeton (AB) and the University of Pittsburgh (PhD and JD), where he now serves as Director of Special Programs at the University Honors College and Director of the Dick Thornburgh Forum for Law and Public Policy. He is the author of “The Value of Species” (Yale University Press, 2012).

Judge McCord is also survived by a brother, James E. McCord, of Dowling Park as well by five grandchildren and three great grandchildren, all of whom he lived to know. They are John William Kelly III and his wife Trang of New York City; Elizabeth Corbin Kelly and her husband, Olivier Poncet of New York City; Guyte Pierce McCord IV of New York City; William Reed McCord of New York City; and Riley Edward McCord of Tallahassee; great grandchildren Colette Elisabeth Poncet; William Vincent Kelly and Xavier Vinh Tam Kelly all of New York City. He was also predeceased by his sister, Jean McCord Boone.

A memorial service and reception will be held at the First Presbyterian Church on March 29, 2015 at 3:00 p.m.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Guyte P. McCord Memorial Endowed Scholarship and made payable to “FSU College of Law” and sent to: FSU College of Law, Office of Development & Alumni Affairs, 425 W. Jefferson Street, Tallahassee, FL 32306-1601

Dr. Robert Manton Wilson, Jr. died peacefully on November 19, 2014, five days after celebrating his 100th birthday. He was born the middle of seven children to Dr. Robert Manton Wilson, Sr. and Bess Knox Wilson in St. Louis, MO, while his family was on furlough from his father’s pioneering medical mission in Korea. Bob grew up in Korea, graduated from Pyongyang Foreign School, and then came to the U.S. to attend Davidson College and the Medical College of Virginia, graduating in 1943. He married Ellen Douglas Gray in Richmond, VA, in 1944.

As an Army captain and medical officer during WWII, Dr. Wilson volunteered to make a dangerous parachute jump in south China to save the life of an American officer who lay critically ill with a ruptured appendix, and then escaped by walking out through Burma. For this jump and other military service, he was awarded the Bronze Star.

Bob moved with his family to Spokane in 1959 to join Rockwood Clinic as a radiologist. He was an avid outdoorsman, and raised his children to live simply and humbly and to love and respect the natural world. The family enjoyed skiing, camping, birding, lake trips, and mountaineering. After retiring in 1983 Bob and Ellen moved to Lopez Island, returning to the Spokane area in 1998. They continued an active life in their final years, in Cheney and at Rockwood Retirement Community, walking, reading, and playing bridge.

He is survived by his daughter Ellen Kohjima, son-in-law Mitch Kohjima, daughter Stuart Wilson, son-in-law Eric Wert, and grand- children Taishi Kohjima, Joji Kohjima, Laura Wert, Emma Wert, and Alex Wert. He is also survived by a brother, John Wilson of Black Mountain, NC, and a host of nieces and nephews across the country. His wife Ellen and son Robert Manton Wilson III died earlier this year.

A memorial service will be held on December 23rd at 3:00 PM at Rockwood South, 2903 E. 25th Ave., Spokane.

In lieu of flowers, contributions in his memory can be made to the Nature Conservancy.

Dr. Kenneth Munro Scott departed for his Heavenly Home at the age of 98 on September 15, 2014, to join his beloved Ann. His passing was eased by the patient and loving care of the wonderful Health Care staff of Givens Highland Farms, Black Mountain, under the auspices of CarePartners Hospice.

Ken was born on March 22, 1916, in Tsingtao, in the German Crown Colony on Shantung Peninsula, China.  The youngest of five children, his parents, Charles Ernest and Clara Heywood Scott, were Presbyterian missionaries in China for 36 years.  The family for the next thirty years was buffeted by the brutal Communist uprising and the Japanese invasion of the Chinese Mainland.  After attending schools in China, the Scott family was forced by political events to move to North Korea where Ken attended the first years of high school in Pyongyang, Korea (under Japanese colonial occupation), and then graduated from The Stony Brook School, Long Island, New York.

In 1933 Ken began studying music, both piano and organ, at Davidson College in North Carolina.  While he ultimately went on to pursue a career in medicine he continued to be an accomplished pianist and organist, playing in recitals, church sanctuaries, and the Black Mountain Rotary Club until he was 97 years old. He graduated from Davidson Summa Cum Laude in June 1937 and was accepted at the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania.  During his residency at the Presbyterian Hospital in West Philadelphia Ken met Anna Bicksler, the charge nurse and “little general” of the third floor. The wedding took place on July 11, 1942, and they honeymooned in Western North Carolina.

But they did not have long together as Ken entered the U.S. Army as a Captain in the Medical Corps just three weeks after they were married. After training he was shipped out to China via India, to serve as an advisor to the Third Chinese Army in Burma and China (because of his fluency in Chinese).  He returned to the United States in 1945, much thinner after the rigors of jungle life, but ecstatic to be reunited with Ann.

Children soon followed:  Ken, Jr. was born in 1946 and Charles in 1950.  Ken completed his surgical residency and then served on the staff of the Veterans Administration hospital in Coatesville, PA.  During this time he decided that he was called to serve as a medical missionary.  As China was now closed to Americans, Ken accepted a call to serve in the Republic of Korea. October of 1952 found the Scott family on a freighter traveling across the Pacific Ocean to Yokohama, Japan. They lived in Tokyo until it was safe to move to Korea following the Korean War.  From April 1954 to the summer of 1957, Ken was director of the Presbyterian Hospital in Taegu and its chief surgeon.  A daughter was born in March 1956 – Elisabeth Alden Scott, or Betsy.

After furlough in the US 1957-58, Ken was assigned to Severance Hospital in Seoul which became part of Yonsei University.  He served as professor of surgery at the medical school. While he was very happy to serve in Korea, in 1964, Ken was called to another country – India – to serve as the Director of the Christian Medical College and Hospital in Ludhiana, Punjab.  This large institution – an 800-bed hospital, 350-student medical college, nursing school, and several subsidiary hospitals – needed calm leadership and a vision for transition to Indian leadership.  After ten years, Ken achieved his objective and was succeeded by an eminently capable Indian director.

The Scotts returned to western North Carolina in 1974 and lived in Swannanoa, overlooking Warren Wilson College, for 27 years. The couple happily participated in the life of the Swannanoa Valley and Warren Wilson Presbyterian church.  Ken worked at the Black Mountain Center as a physician in the tuberculosis program of the NC Department of Public Health, retiring in 1991.  Ken and Ann then moved to Black Mountain in 2001 and to Highland Farms in 2010.  His beloved Ann passed away in August 2010.

Ken is survived by three children – Ken, Jr., Charles (Marjorie), and Betsy (John Murphy); seven grandchildren – Thayer Scott (Diane Waggoner), Audrey Scott (Daniel Noll), Michael Scott, Brian Scott, Gordie Murphy, Joey Murphy, and Nick Murphy; and two great-grandchildren – Vivian Scott and Sylvia Scott.

Ken took Proverbs 3:5 as the guideline for his life.  “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight”.  He believed this promise implicitly and felt God’s guidance through all the decisions and major commitments in his long and productive life.

A Service of Witness to the Resurrection will be held on Sunday, September 28 at 3:00 p.m. at the Black Mountain Presbyterian Church, 117 Montreat Road, Black Mountain, NC 28711.  Instead of flowers, donations can be made to Presbyterian World Missions, PO Box 643700, Pittsburgh, PA 15264-3700.

Funeral arrangements have been made through Harwood Home for Funerals, Black Mountain.