Carlyle Whitelow Obituary – Mentor to a few, Cotton to other people, Carlyle to more — the Bridgewater man had many names among the many individuals whose lives he contacted. Carlyle Whitelow, 89, a Rockingham County and Bridgewater legend, kicked the bucket Friday at Sentara RMH Medical Center, where he had been hospitalized with COVID-19 pneumonia.
“He was only one of those individuals that any place there was an issue, he was there to perceive what he could do about it,” said Glen Thomas, a deep rooted companion of Whitelow. “He grew up that way.”
Whitelow’s nephew, Carter, said his uncle became like a mentor after Carter’s dad, Alfred, kicked the bucket in 2001.
“My uncle was a mainstay of local area in Bridgewater, yet additionally a mainstay of our family,” Carter Whitelow said.
Carlyle Whitelow composed Carter and his sibling letters each week for quite a long time — and Carter has a chest loaded with the messages to demonstrate it. Various Bridgewater occupants, chosen authorities, and previous Bridgewater College staff said Whitelow’s effect on the town and Shenandoah Valley may never be completely known in light of the elusive idea of his commitments of adoration, empathy, care and difficult work. This crossed across foundations, like BC, and metro gatherings, like the Ruritans, the Rotary Club and the sky is the limit from there.
Whitelow was notable in Bridgewater for some reasons the letters like the ones he kept in touch with his nephews and others, his time considering, contending, instructing and training at Bridgewater College — yet for the last decade-in addition to he could be found in the mornings outside Dairy Queen on North Main Street, waving to those venturing out to work or school.
At the point when he had gone into the medical clinic recently, other town occupants accepted his responsibility to spread the delight Whitelow obediently and joyfully circulated. One of those individuals was Donna Pettit, of Bridgewater, who said she found out with regards to Whitelow’s passing while at the Turner Ashby High School football match-up Friday night after her child got the call.
She said that evening, as the news spread at the game and after, different inhabitants asked her and the others to carry on the early daytime waving. Yet, she said the inhabitants presently can’t seem to settle on a ultimate conclusion. Jim Harlow, leader of the Bridgewater Ruritan Club, has known Whitelow for quite a long time both in and outside the local gathering and was an individual Industrial and Commercial Ministries pastor alongside Whitelow.
“There’s no filling his shoes,” Harlow said.
He said Whitelow’s wake-up routine of waving had a moment impact.
“You would see individuals that perhaps weren’t having a genuine decent morning and they would see his wave, particularly the kids in the school transports, they would simply radiate up and wave with the windows down on the transports,” Harlow said. “It changed their entire day, their entire demeanor.”
Harlow’s girl, Fonda Morris, was an understudy of Whitelow while he educated at Bridgewater College, where she took in bowling from him. She said the main explanation she took the class was to gain from him.