Nobody Knew That Rev. Demott and Mrs. Wiltsie Were About To Run Off

    One Sunday morning, Rev. Demott failed to appear at the pulpit of the Presbyterian Church of Cortland. Nobody had been told he would be gone. There was a long wait in the pews of the church, until somebody went up to the pulpit and found a letter there. It was written by Rev. Demott and it said that he had left town with Mrs. Wiltsie.
    It was, of course, a complete shock to everyone because the affair between Rev. Demott and Mrs. Wiltsie was not widely known. It seems that George Wiltsie, Jr. was gay and not all of his trips to New York City were strictly buying trips for his department store in Cortland. Mrs. Wiltsie and Rev. Demott, meanwhile, were having a very discreet and serious affair.
    My father was an elder in the church at the time and wanted to fire Rev. Demott, but the other elders didn't have the guts to do it. So when Mrs. Wiltsie and the minister eloped, the problem was solved. Not the way anybody would have predicted--but solved nonetheless.
    I suspect there was great relief among the congregation when Rev. Demott left. He was later drummed out of the Presbyterian Church.
    There used to be two Presbyterian churches in Cortland, the First Presbyterian Church on Church Street and the North Presbyterian Church at the corner of Alvina and Homer Avenues. At one point--I can't give you the date--the North Presbyterian Church merged with the First Presbyterian Church, which later changed its name to First United Presbyterian Church. Neither congregation liked the arrangement at first. The First Presbyterian membership tended to be snobbish and looked down their noses at the invasion by the less affluent North Presbyterians. It was very un-Christian discrimination. The North Presbyterians felt unwelcome, and to many of the First Presbyterian Church they were.
     We were members of the First Presbyterian Church. I asked my mother why, considering the snooty attitude of the church membership, and she responded: "We joined at the time your grandmother did."
     My parents volunteered for church-related activities and functions. My father was a deacon and then an elder. Dad used to occasionally use the phrase "do-gooder" contemptuously, but in his own way he was a "do-gooder" himself. Besides his church activities, he was a troop committee member in Boy Scouts. My mother and Shirley Thompson were Cub Scout den mothers. Mr. Thompson was general manager of radio station WKRT, which was owned by Leighton Hope.
    My mother was also active in the Women's Association of the church. It was, for the most part, an upper class, snobbish church, and always has been. The membership of the First Presbyterian Church read like a social register. Wickwire, Higgins, Brewer, Marsted McJunkin and more. I used to call it "Country Club Christianity."

Former Cortland Resident

Editor's Note: Please refer to previous post Memories of Cortland posted November 15, 2011.