Ethyle Giuseppe, Friend of the Community

Liberty Anderson, staff writer

Ethyle Giuseppe was born 100 years ago at the bottom of the mountain on South River road in Stanardsville, on Sept. 27, 1918. She has been a generous contributor to her community and PVCC, providing scholarship money and meeting the needs of her community to the best of her ability.

One day she needed a box to carry books from the library and was directed to the upper level of the Greene County Library. After seeing how the space was unfinished and wasted, she called the next day to see what she could do.

“Are you sober?” was the reaction she received when she had called the county to fund the development of what is now the Eugene Giuseppe Center in Stanardsville, Virginia.

She responded, “I have never had a drink in my life.” Ethyle prides herself on never having alcohol, cigarettes, or vaccines. She says everything that she has given to this county has been for the children of the community. She recognizes that parents cannot fund these sort of things because they must use the money to raise the children. With no children of her own, she has the capability to give what others cannot.

She has donated to the William Monroe High School on several different occasions for things like a scoreboard in the gym and a greenhouse for agricultural education. She said these things are important to her because her husband was an educator and high school coach and she was a farmer as a young girl. She has also donated to the historical society and Greene county park, providing a basketball court and bathrooms. She said, “Got to do this for the children.” This is her constant motivation. She wants to be remembered for giving to the people, the county, the school, but most importantly the children.

Ethyle has given over two million dollars to the county over the years. For her birthday, she received a call from PVCC, they asked if they could throw a party for her. They wanted to have an entrance fee. She said, “not a penny.” She would not have come if there was a charge to the guests. She donated more money that became scholarships at PVCC instead of charging people to come to her birthday party. She went to a total of three different birthday buffets: at her church, the historical society, and PVCC.

At the event she told stories of her childhood, telling us about how as a child she would always have apple butter with her bread and biscuits. One day as a small child her mother had left her outside to lay in the sun. Her mother watched from the window in terror as she saw a large bear come and lick her baby’s face, after the apple butter. Frozen in fear for her child, she just prayed as the bear finished cleaning her face and walked back up the mountain.

After Ethyle graduated high school, she had no way to go to college. When her uncle died while in the military her mother received a few hundred dollars. $100 was all it took to send Ethyle to college. She pursued architecture as a career until she was offered a job at UVA.

When she worked for the UVA accounting department, she roomed with a woman named Gene. Gene’s cousin Eugene visited and talked with Ethyle all day. From then on, he began to visit more and more often. He was a football coach and school principal in Greene county. Most nights he would join Ethyle for supper.

They wanted to marry, but with his football schedule, he did not have any free Saturdays. Eventually, he had one free Saturday, and so they were married. They were married for many years, and after he had retired they began to “Cruise” otherwise known as travelling. They went around the world twice together.

She named the PVCC center in Greene after him because Giuseppe was too short and she wanted to honor his memory, not her own.

Ethyle told me about how she has always loved rabbits; she would tell all of the farmers in the county to bring her rabbits if they ran over a nest with their tractors. Ethyle knew a lot about rabbits and how once they had been out of the nest the mother would abandon them. She told me she must have raised 50 rabbits from infancy to adulthood. Even now, she still has many rabbits that she raised living on the property. They were tame to the point of picking them up off the ground whenever she saw them.

Ethyle is a strong believer in divine interventions and says she has not missed a Sunday in 60 years. She has no plan for the coming year: “If I live another day I’m happy, I’m thankful.”