<\/a>October 07, 1999<\/p>\nGwyneth L. Bassage is one of the people in our neighborhood. She is a soft-spoken woman of God with a will and determination like a mighty oak that grows from a tiny acorn.<\/p>\n
The seed was planted when Gwyn felt the call to the ministry during her junior year at the Fairport High School. In spite of her father\u2019s objections, her preparations were all made to attend Franklyn Baptist College in Indiana when her father again came to her.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe told me,\u201d Gwyn said, \u201cthat if I went to college, my brother wouldn\u2019t be able to go to college, and that I\u2019d only get married anyway, so why go to college?\u201d<\/p>\n
She honored her father\u2019s request, but put her faith in God\u2019s hands and knew that the next man she met, she would marry.<\/p>\n
Now as it turned out, her High School sorority sister set her up with a date for Thanksgiving evening during her Senior year in 1956. The date was George L. Bassage from near-by Walworth. They were married August 1, 1957 and established their roots in Walworth.<\/p>\n
Gwyn and George\u2019s family tree branched out with their four, (now grown) children: Heidi Scutella is currently a dental hygienist with Dr. Nash and the mother of George and Gwyn\u2019s three grandchildren, Kara, Allen and Nicole; Terry is married to Susan and are expecting their first baby in April; Aaron is working and attending MCC; Colin, is employed by Jasco and living home.<\/p>\n
Except for a brief interlude in the sixties the, the Bassage\u2019s have run the Leoloy dairy farm from the time they moved here in 1957 until April of 1999. With the ups and downs of raising four children and the sometimes-uncertain economy of a dairy farm. Life for Gwyn was full of personal challenges, spiritual growing experiences and preparation for her ministry.<\/p>\n
\u201call things work together for good,\u201d Gwyn said. \u201cThe experiences I\u2019ve had with my father and my children make me realize that I\u2019ve been in preparation for 42 years and my journey hasn\u2019t yet ended.\u201d<\/p>\n
This past summer, she switched from being our part-time Deputy Town Clerk to be the full-time data entry\/receptionist at the Walworth Water Authority on Daansan Road. She also manages to find time to work on a doll house and do counted cross-stitch.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery person has something good about them, she continued. \u201cI can love the people I minister in-spite of their habits and excuses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gwyn\u2019s spiritual journey has been profound and deep, leading her to believe herself to be an ecumenical Christian and dedicated to her ministry with the Walworth Food Pantry, which is located in the First Baptist Church of Walworth.<\/p>\n
As a licensed Baptist Lay-minister, Gwyn organizes Sunday Services, preaches and teaches in Fairport and the Baptist Church in Walworth, yet her ministry has taken her primarily to the Food Pantry where she has organized a mentoring program. The first session had ten women Food Pantry recipients learning to sew with community members. The second session found the women learning about nutrition through the Cornell Extension services and the third is going to be Knitting Classes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI left it up to God as to who would mentor with whom,\u201d Gwyn said. \u201cMy goal is for members of the community and recipients of the Food Pantry to recognize that they are not that different from each other. I find it very rewarding when former recipients come back to mentor current recipients.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gwyn is saddened by the loss of the Walworth Hamlet\u2019s identity throughout the years she has lived here.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe little hamlet doesn\u2019t have a vital Main Street anymore,\u201d she commented. \u201cThe soda fountain is gone, neighbors don\u2019t know each other and we\u2019re divided. We have a fine government and they have tried to pull things together and form an identity, but Gananda wants to be separate.\u201d<\/p>\n
She is quick to say, though, that the people of Gananda are very generous and frequent donators to the Food Pantry. The Rotary and Scouts are particularly supportive of the Food Pantry.<\/p>\n
Gwyn sees the Wayne Community Partnership\u2019s Hope Works as a very positive movement in our greater community (Walworth, Gananda and Ontario). This is a program the Wayne Central School initiated to bring community resources together to assist families that are in need and want assistance.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy hope is that people will continue to work together as volunteers and recipients and see each other as neighbors, she said. \u201cWe have a special love in Christ and rather than preach it, we need to be it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thank you, Gwyn Bassage. The broad canopy your love offers us is a refuge we can trust. You are a Walworthian with the accent on worth.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Walworthians A collection of telephone interviews published in the Wayne County STAR Newspaper and Wayne County MAIL Newspaper, 1994-209 by Kate Chamberlin Gwyn Bassage October 07, 1999 Gwyneth L. Bassage is one of the people in our neighborhood. She is a soft-spoken woman of God with a will and determination like a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1324,"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1323\/revisions\/1324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}