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November 22 Today in OPC History

Betty Wallace

2021

 

Shortly before Elizabeth “Betty” Wallace went home to her Heavenly Father on this date in 1986, the eighty-three-year old told her granddaughter, “Any better, I couldn’t stand it!” That was her mantra, repeated throughout her faithful life. Betty was born on May 8, 1903 in Northern Ireland, where she became a Christian during a revival meeting. In 1928 she immigrated to America to join her brothers and worked making sandwiches at Woolworths in New York City. She met young Bob Wallace, a Presbyterian immigrant from Ireland who lived in her apartment building. They married on May 29, 1936 and the following year became part of an effort to start an Orthodox Presbyterian Church in New York City. In 1939 regular worship services began in Franklin Square and Bob was ordained as a ruling elder of the OPC of Franklin Square. Jean, the eldest of their five children, was the first child baptized at the church. When Betty taught the beginner’s Sunday school class, she creatively applied the biblical lessons to her students’ everyday life. Sunday lunches of chicken and mashed potatoes were always followed by Scripture reading and prayer. Betty then wrote to missionaries, whom she fed when they traveled through JFK Airport.

In 1983, Betty had a stroke, but when she woke up a week later, she said in her Irish brogue, “Any better, I couldn’t stand it!” When she entered Glory about three years later, she left an OPC legacy which includes daughter Jean, who played the organ for sixty-four years at the OPC of Franklin Square, and daughter Betty, who is married to OP minister Douglas A. Watson. Two of her granddaughters also play the piano in their OP congregations.

Read more of Betty’s story in the newly published book Choosing the Good Portion: Women in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, available on OPC.ORG here.

Picture: Bob and Betty Wallace and their children in the 1940s.

 

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