Say the name Edwina Griffith around First Baptist Church Whitwell, Tennessee, and chances are everyone will know exactly who she is.
At 93, Griffith still leads the Sunday school class she’s taught for 70 years. She joined the church in 1953 and hasn’t stopped teaching since.
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“Being in Sunday school and teaching Sunday school is just a part of life,” Griffith said. “I mean, my Sunday’s already scheduled. I don’t have to worry about what I’m going to do on Sunday.”
Her practical, no-nonsense approach to life’s greatest difficulties — illness, death, financial hardship — counters modern anxiety culture. Her philosophy: Don’t worry and keep going.
“When it looks like everything’s out of control, God is in control,” Griffith said.
Each woman in Griffith’s Sunday school class can recite her sayings: “It is what it is” and “Your character is what you are. Your reputation is what people think you are. Keep them one and the same” — a phrase her father taught her.
From the dairy farm to DuPont
Growing up on a dairy farm in “the valley” taught her many things. As a child, she recorded how many gallons of milk the farm sold, which served as early training for her accounting career at DuPont.
The farm also taught her how to handle life’s sorrows.
“Death is painful, but it’s part of life on the farm,” she said. “You understand that early because of cattle and all the animals.”
That philosophy carried her through her husband’s illness, her sister’s death, raising her sister’s two sons, losing her own son in a car accident, and watching the world move on.
“I wait until I know what it is I need to worry about,” she said.
Through decades of history — the Great Depression, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the rises and falls of presidencies — her Sunday school class remained constant.
“We’ve been together for so many years, we’ve shared our happiness and we’ve shared our sorrows,” Griffith said.
A calling she didn’t expect
She started teaching by accident — something that happens often in her life.
“I’ve accomplished more through what people thought I could do than what I thought I could do myself,” she said.
O.R. Wagner encouraged her to teach Sunday school around 1955.
“He just was a fine Christian man and saw in me things I didn’t even know was in myself,” she said.
Griffith started teaching a co-ed young adult married class. Dean Mosier joined that class in 1965 and still attends today.
“You can go to her for anything, with confidence,” Mosier said. “She’s encouraged me through family deaths. It’s a small community and we’ve always included each other in everything. She’s our rock.”
Through hardship and loss
As a “Depression kid,” Griffith learned not to waste anything. She grew up without electricity or plumbing, with only oil lamps lighting the night.
During World War II, she listened to war news on the radio while family members served overseas, including a brother-in-law in the Battle of the Bulge. The Army drafted her husband, Phil, during the Korean War in 1953, while seven of her parents’ grandsons served in Vietnam.
She has seen it all, but fear doesn’t grip her.
“In the Bible as we study, God prepares the people for the time in which they live,” she said. “So God’s going to prepare our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren in the years that they will live.”
When Edwina’s youngest sister died at 24 from cancer, she left behind two boys.
“She asked me to take the two boys. So my husband and I prayed about it, and I told God if he would, I would. And he did. And I did,” she said.
She raised them alongside her three biological children.
Then Phil suffered a heart attack at 40. He couldn’t work for his remaining 16 years, so Edwina became the breadwinner.
“You don’t think about when you get married that you’re going to be the one to be the provider,” she recalled. “I was the provider for the family, and I am known for the statement: It is what it is. My philosophy is life can make you better or bitter. You can’t change it. You didn’t cause it. So you deal with it.”
She worked at DuPont for 37 years, leaving early each morning for the hour commute to Chattanooga, which gave her time to make it back for her kids’ ballgames.
She brags that in all those years driving over Suck Creek Mountain, she only had two wrecks.
She also stayed “civic-minded,” joining American Business Women Association and directing the Marion County Chamber of Commerce. Additionally, she served as First Baptist’s secretary for 17 years and their church clerk for 35 years.
“Life goes on and we need to be thankful for the blessings we had for the person we were with while they were here in our memories instead of feeling so sorry for the loss we have,” she said.
Still going strong
Today, she fights to stay independent. She jokes, “I can’t see, can’t hear, but got my driver’s license.”
Whitwell suits her well. With a strong church family, Griffith plans to keep teaching Sunday school as long as she can.
“I thought, well, what’s your excuse? You’ve got plenty of time to study. And God has left me with my memory so that I can remember what I studied. And so I’m teaching another year,” she said. “God will use you as long as you’re willing to, as long as you can.”
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Zoë Watkins and originally published by the Baptist and Reflector.
