Those who knew him describe a person who always had a kind word and a smile.
By DAN DeWITT
Published December 19, 2003
SPRING LAKE - At 103, the Rev. Arthur Goldwire was still able to feed himself and was alert enough to follow his favorite television programs and chat with family members.
But he also knew he was near death and was prepared for it.
Late Saturday night, with his granddaughter, Christine Woods, sitting at his bedside, the Rev. Goldwire began to tremble and gasp for breath. She asked if he was okay, and he answered that he was.
"He said, "Baby, don't you worry about me. Granddaddy made it right with God,' " said Woods, 21.
The Rev. Goldwire died early Sunday (Dec. 14, 2003) of heart failure, said his daughter, Yvonne Woods, 58.
He was so well-known and well-liked, she said, that dozens of friends, as well as several county commissioners and business owners, have called to offer sympathy or to donate food.
This will be served at a gathering planned for after his funeral, scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday at Mount Pleasant Missionary Baptist Church in the Twin Lakes area.
"Everybody has called. I mean everybody," Woods said.
The Rev. Goldwire was famous for his sermons, for growing watermelons, and for boiled peanuts that he cooked according to his own recipe and sold at roadside stands and stores in Hernando and Pasco counties.
"Everybody knew him as the peanut man," Woods said.
Well into his 80s, he headed harvesting crews for his son-in-law, Willie Woods, and traveled with them throughout the Southeast.
At age 100, he still occasionally mowed the lawn at his daughter's house, cooked his peanuts and visited homebound members of the Mount Pleasant congregation.
"I've never seen him say a harsh word," one of his neighbors, Mable Sims, said when the Rev. Goldwire turned 100 in August of 2000.
"He always has a friendly smile. Every time he speaks, he speaks with the Lord on his tongue."
But he wasn't always such a model Christian, he said at the time.
The Rev. Goldwire grew up in the small towns of Quincy and Newberry and started work - splitting shingles in his uncle's lumber yard - at age 12.
At 16, he married his first wife, who was then 13. As a young man he worked for a railroad company, toured with a semiprofessional, segregated baseball team and sold moonshine.
He does not remember when he decided to quit drinking and devote himself to Christ, but he remembers he did it suddenly, with the donation of a pint of Four Roses whiskey to his neighbor.
"I turned it loose, and I never picked it up again," he said.
He was ordained in 1955 and served as the pastor of Zion Hill Missionary Baptist Church in Eustis and Pleasant Hill Missionary Baptist Church in Floral City.
He move to Hernando County in 1979, which is when he began growing watermelons and selling peanuts, and, until the mid 1990s, spending his weekends with a girlfriend in Tampa.
In the 2000 interview, he credited his long, active life to his religion, his close ties with his family and a diet of natural, home-cooked food.
He continued all these practices right to the end, Yvonne Woods said.
But in the past few weeks, he became bedridden and mostly lost interest in eating.
"All we had to do was cook a pot of pigs' feet and he would eat every one," Woods said.
On Saturday, he knew he was sick.
"He said, "You know, Daddy's getting weak. I know my time is winding up,' " his daughter said.
But, rather than going to the hospital, he insisted on staying with his family members; he spent most of the day in bed in front of the television set, talking with them. And, in the moments before death, he prayed.
"When he passed, he was waving his hands and praising the Lord," Woods said.
- Dan DeWitt can be reached at 352 754-6116. Send e-mail to dewitt@sptimes.com
