The Rev. Dr. Gerald "Gerry" Wyrwas, a Presbyterian minister who was the long-time director of pastoral care at Bon Secours Hospital (now called the Holy Family Hospital) in Methuen, Mass., died May 2, 2024, from complications of Alzheimer’s disease. He was 89.
Those who knew him well describe Wyrwas as a family man of deep faith who embraced the many facets of his career in addition to being director of pastoral care, minister and licensed psychologist.
In the 25 years he was the director of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) at Holy Family, almost 600 participants, called “interns,” from 43 countries participated in the hospital’s program. CPE is a multicultural, interfaith approach to teaching doctors, lawyers, hospital administrators, and educators how to more effectively deliver spiritual care to seriously ill patients and their caregivers.
“To say that Gerry Wyrwas is a visionary is an understatement,” a hospital colleague said when he retired from full-time work in 1999. “His work inspired CPE interns to join the ministry or to further theological education, as well as refreshing and revitalizing the work of missionaries throughout the world.”
Other colleagues said his integration of theology and psychology was a “unique gift” that gave him an in-depth understanding of people. “He invites people forth, into being the best they can be, and does so with a delightful sense of humor. He is a deeply compassionate and warm person.”
Family members and graduates of his CPE program often recall favorite aphorisms he relied on to perk up interns. One was: “Whenever we fail to acknowledge our God-given talents, we lie, cheat, and steal.” Another: “How are you feeling? Are you mad, sad, glad, or fearful?”
Gerald Grant Wyrwas was born September 28, 1934, in the small, remote coal-mining village of Inverness, Nova Scotia. He was the youngest of six children of Edward Theodore Wyrwas, an electrician, and Mary Agnes (MacKenzie) Wyrwas, a Sunday school teacher.
After graduating from high school, he briefly worked for his father, then took a job at the Royal Bank of Canada. After being promoted to assistant accountant and assigned to the Halifax branch in 1955, he met his future wife, Ethel M. Bowman, on a blind date. They married in May 1957.
Around that time, he decided to leave banking and join the ministry. “I liked banking and . . . had more than doubled my salary while I was with it,” he wrote years later, “but I was not satisfied. I felt there was more to life than handling other people’s money.”
He enrolled at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology and philosophy, with a minor in Greek. He then earned a Bachelor of Divinity at Pine Hill Divinity College in Halifax.
He was a student missionary in Alberta and assisted the ministers at the Brunswick Street United Church, Truro, and Guysborough-Canso Pastoral Church. While at Pine Hill, he served as Old Barns Pastoral Charge and Maitland Pastoral Charge. After ordination, he served as Winsloe Pastoral Charge, P.E.I., and then assistant minister of Trinity United Church in Charlottetown, P.E.I.
He was ordained a minister of the United Church of Canada in June 1960 and began his ecclesiastical career as the pastor of four rural churches in the village of Winsloe, Prince Edward Island.
In 1967, Wyrwas moved with his family to Massachusetts and was called into pastoral ministry in the Presbytery of Boston to serve as pastor with the First Presbyterian Church of Lynn. He also was named director of the Department of Spiritual Care (Pastoral) Services at Holy Family Hospital and maintained a pastoral counseling center in Lynnfield, Mass.
In 1980, Wyrwas was Moderator, or senior leader, of Boston’s presbytery, the regional governing body for Boston-area churches. A year later, he was the presbytery’s minister commissioner to the 193rd General Assembly in Houston.
A Boston Presbytery colleague described him as “an articulate and calming presence” at presbytery meetings and “invaluable” as chair of the Committee on Ministry. He was a founding member of the presbytery’s Honorably Retired Ministers group.
Wyrwas remained the pastor of the Lynn congregation for 20 years, finding time to earn two graduate degrees—Master’s of Sacred Theology and Doctor of Ministry—from the Andover Newton Theological School in Newton Centre, Mass. He also was a long-time adjunct faculty member of the school.
In addition to his ecclesiastical training, Wyrwas was a licensed psychologist and was a member of both the American Psychological Association and the Massachusetts Psychological Association.
A natural raconteur, he also enjoyed sharing humorous stories and indulging his children. His daughter Margaret said he delighted in impishly treating her and her siblings to soda and candy when they accompanied him on errands without Ethel, who frowned on her children indulging in junk food.
“Family was most important in Dad’s eyes,” his son, David, said. “The second most important thing was education and knowledge. He continually was trying to enhance his knowledge and wanted to share it with everyone he came in contact with.”
His musical tastes ran from Frank Sinatra to Rod Stewart, and he had a treasure chest of amusing stories to share with his family, students and parishioners.
“Dad was a man of deep faith, devotion to his family and friends, and dedication to helping others,” his younger daughter, Susan Lynn, recalled. “He was willing to listen and give advice, and would surprise people who didn’t know him with his dry wit.”
Susan Lynn’s son Daniel, using his nickname for the pastor, said, “Grampie had a story for everything with a knack for telling them to others. At the end of each story, he would typically share a good laugh with everyone he was telling the story to.”
Wyrwas was a lifetime member of Clan Mackenzie Society of the Americas, a Master Mason for 20 years with the Lynnfield-Zetland Lodge, chaplain for the Daughters of Scotia, and president and chaplain of the Scots’ Charitable Society.
He is survived by his wife, Ethel, a retired Registered Nurse Practitioner; daughters Margaret (Peter Thorner) of Westport, Conn., and Susan Lynn (Kevin Winters) of Easton, Mass.; son David (Myoung Hee) of Merrimack, N.H.; and grandson Daniel B. Winters of Philadelphia, PA.
He was preceded in death by his parents; siblings Leonard, Margaret (Banks), Raymond, Maxwell, and Harold; and grandsons Thomas Ryan Winters, John David Wyrwas, and Edward Gerald Wyrwas.
A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. at the Bedford Presbyterian Church, 4 Church Road in Bedford, N.H. on September 28, 2024 which would have been his 90th birthday. The Rev. Dr. John Sawyer will conduct the service. Interment will occur in the Sand Hill Cemetery, Upper Nine Mile River in Nova Scotia at a later date.
It has been suggested that those who wish may make memorial contributions to one of these groups: the Alzheimer’s Association, Presbytery of Boston, Scots’ Charitable Society Scholarships and the Bedford Presbyterian Church.
The Wyrwas family gives special thanks to Gerry’s caregivers: the memory care staff at the Bedford Falls Assisted Living Facility, clinical staff members at Brookhaven Hospice, both in Bedford, N.H., and the Rivet Funeral Home and Crematorium in Merrimack, N.H.
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