NORTH AUGUSTA – Sunday was Norma Mathis Pate Day at Sweetwater Baptist Church.
Mrs. Pate, who will turn 90 in August and who is considered a pillar of the church and community, was honored at the morning worship service and again at a reception from 2 to 4 p.m. in the Family Life Center.

The center was named in honor of her mother and father, the late D.T. and Minnie Mathis.
During the morning service, the current pastor, Dr. Paul Noe, spoke on a life of faithfulness. He took his text from 1 Corinthians 4:2.

“Mrs. Pate has been faithful in her walk with God, to the word of God, her witness for God and in her work for God,” he said.

She was presented with a plaque and a framed poem, written by poet laureate Billy Arrington, entitled, “The Sweetheart of Sweetwater.”

Mrs. Pate’s life of service began in the Colliers Community of Edgefield County. She was the eldest of four children, followed by her brother Dan, sister Willie Jo and brother Fred. The Mathis family moved to Sweetwater in 1925 when Mr. Mathis began the Cherokee Dairy, located near where Highway 25 and I-20 meet today. The entire family was active in Sweetwater Baptist Church, as well as in community organizations and activities.

Mrs. Pate (then Norma Mathis) graduated from North Augusta High School and during the Great Depression her family found the money to send her to Coker College. Her father sold two bales of cotton to make her first tuition payment. Mrs. Pate said she considered herself lucky if she had five dollars per month to spend. She began her teaching career at Bath Elementary School. During the years, she also taught in Vero Beach, Fla. and was principal in Brunswick, Ga. She served in the Signal Corps during World War II and worked at Georgia Pacific.

Mrs. Pate met and married Benjamin Pate, a widower with two young sons, Joe and Benny Dee, while teaching in Florida. Together they had another son, Norman. In 1957, they moved to Marion when the U.S. Department of Agriculture transferred her husband there. Mrs. Pate taught in Marion, and in 1973 the family moved back to the North Augusta area where Mrs. Pate taught school for nine more years at Belvedere Elementary until she retired.

Over the years, her community involvement has included service on the Board of Visitors for USC-Aiken and membership in Delta Kappa Gamma for 60 years. At Sweetwater Baptist Church, she has served as director of the WMU, a Sunday School teacher, director of the Youth Department and chairman of the Prayer Chain Committees for nearly 25 years.

In addition, she has worked with the GAs and served on the Personnel, Finance and Benevolence Committees. She also served on the Pastor Search Committee that brought Dr. Eleazer Benenhaley, one of Sweetwater’s most remembered pastors, to the church.

Following the death of her husband in 1994, Mrs. Pate lived in their home in Barclay Estates until 2008 when she moved to the Hammond House.

Nan Mellette, a former neighbor in Marion, said she has known Mrs. Pate since she (Mrs. Mellette) was in grammar school.

“I grew up with her son, Joe,” she said. “She and my mother were expecting babies at the same time. She was a very good neighbor, a giver, a worker, and she loved everyone. She still has not forgotten one date and she remembers all the children she taught. She has a very good memory.”

Likewise, Alice Edwards, who has known Mrs. Pate for only five years and lives in the Sweetwater community, said she finds Mrs. Pate to be a lovely lady who is friendly and sweet to everyone.
“We met at church,” she said. “We found out she and my sister-in-law attended Coker College together and that she had visited in my husband’s home in Swansea as a college student. Here at Sweetwater, I was interested in missions as my husband and I had been in Nigeria and she was focused on missions. She is a wonderful person.”

To all the fanfare Sunday, Mrs. Pate, dressed in lime green and pink, just smiled and said, “I’m overwhelmed. I don’t feel worthy of all this attention. I feel honored.”

Portions of this article were taken from biographical data compiled by Joyce Meyer in 2009.