“I love life. Every moment. All of your struggles…you can get through them with a positive attitude.”
For that philosophy, for the super-sized scissors she wields for the Chamber of Commerce, for being the kind of person who, when you mention just her first name, everyone knows who you’re talking about, Georgia Van Dyke is the 2018 Times-Journal Star.
Retired from the New York Nurses Association since 2004, Ms. Van Dyke believes in paying it forward.
Not only is she a longtime Chamber volunteer, but she’s also a member of the Wright-Schoharie Valley Lions Club, a founding member of SALT, and a longtime and active member of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Middleburgh.
“When I retired, I didn’t retire from life,” Ms. Van Dyke said with a laugh in, of course, the Chamber office. “And I never plan to do that. Schoharie County is such a magical place with wonderful people…I always want to be a part of that.”
Born on Long Island, Ms. Van Dyke got her first taste of upstate New York when she earned her RNBSN degree from Niagara University in 1965.
Back home, she worked as a nurse in pediatrics, critical care, and ICU until 1983, when she began working as an organizer and in contract negotiations for the NYSNA and began making trips to Albany.
When a position in that office opened up in 1986, she took it—without asking for a single detail.
“I said yes,” she said, and then began looking for a home in the kind of landscape she’d already fallen in love with—silos, rolling hills, farms—before moving into her new home on River Street, Middleburgh on July 8, 1986.
Settling into her new life, she became a member of St. Mark’s and became friends with Arlington and Doris Van Dyke.
Mr. Van Dyke served as Middleburgh mayor, supervisor, and State Assemblyman, but Ms. Van Dyke remembers him best as the local car dealer who pushed her broken-down car home down River Street more than once.
“His nickname for me was Trouble,” she said. “And I’m pretty sure he’d get a good laugh out of the fact that now, Trouble is running Van Dyke Enterprises.”
That’s because Ms. Van Dyke met Mr. Van Dyke’s son, Darryl in church and the two married in 1999; he died just two years and two months later of a heart attack.
“He was the love of my life and the man of my dreams,” Ms. Van Dyke said. “All my memories of him are of happy things,” an attitude that grew out of a difficult childhood and life as a single mom as well as her lifelong religious faith.
“It carried me through the rough spots,” she said. “And I’m a survivor. It gets better. It always gets better.”
After her husband’s death, Ms. Van Dyke jumped into finishing the home he’d been building on Ecker Hollow literally by hand and piece-by-piece, and opened and then expanded Gobbler’s Knob, which he’d been working on.
Also inspired by her husband’s death, she created the Darryl West Van Dyke Memorial Fund, which has purchased and distributed 12 defibrillators to spots around Schoharie County.
As a member of the Wright-Schoharie Lions since 1988, Ms. Van Dyke chairs their Hearing and Sight Committee and also and helps collect, store, and loan out equipment like hospital beds and wheelchairs.
She’s been active in the Chamber since 2010 (see related story) and is a founding member of SALT.
Ask her what she’s proudest of and she says it’s her three children—but also the connections she’s made since she moved here 33 years ago.
“So much history,” she said, remembering when she used to walk down Main Street, Middleburgh with Darryl and he’d share his stories.
“It’s such a wonderful place here. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”