Wyrwas, Rev. Dr. Gerald "Gerry" Presbyterian minister who was the long-time director of pastoral care at 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 25 years as director of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) at Holy Family, he saw almost 600 participants, called "interns," from 43 countries participate in the program. CPE is a multicultural, interfaith approach to teaching doctors, lawyers, administrators and teachers how to deliver spiritual care more effectively 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." Gerald Grant Wyrwas was born September 28, 1934, in 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. He was promoted to assistant accountant and transferred to the Halifax branch, where he met his future wife, Ethel M. Bowman, on a blind date. They wed in 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." At Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology and philosophy, with a minor in Greek. He went on to receive a Bachelor of Divinity at Pine Hill Divinity College in Halifax. While at Pine Hill he served as Old Barns Pastoral Charge and Maitland Pastoral Charge. He was a student missionary in Alberta and assisted the ministers at the Brunswick Street United Church, Truro, and Guysborough-Canso Pastoral Church. He was ordained by the United Church of Canada in June 1960 and began his ecclesiastical career as Winsloe Pastoral Charge in Prince Edward Island, and later as assistant minister of Trinity United Church in Charlottetown, P.E.I. In 1967, Wyrwas moved 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 and maintained a pastoral counseling center in Lynnfield, Mass. In 1980, he 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 said he was "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. Wyrwas was pastor of the Lynn congregation for 20 years, during which he earned a Master's of Sacred Theology and Doctor of Ministry from the Andover Newton Theological School in Newton Centre, Mass. He also became a licensed psychologist. He 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; 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 the Bedford Presbyterian Church in Bedford, N.H. on September 28, 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 the Alzheimer's Society of Canada or the Sand Hill Cemetery. 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. Kindly visit rivetfuneralhome.com for a complete obituary and to leave a condolence message for the family.
Rev. Dr. Gerald “Gerry” WYRWAS — -
