Stan Gillespie loved literature and loved teaching literature. Friends and family say his passion for books shone through his teaching.
“He just touched so many lives in his teaching throughout the years,” said Gillespie’s daughter Amy Silverstein. “The classroom was really his element to shine, and it was just evident by all of the students who would come back years later and track him down and want to go out to lunch and talk and visit.”
After attending Emory University, Gillespie earned his master’s degree in English literature from the University of Georgia. He then taught at Riverside Military Academy for two years, and he also had long careers at McCallie School in Chattanooga and Pace Academy in Atlanta. After retiring from Pace, Gillespie taught a few classes at Emory.
Gillespie’s wife Dodie said her husband loved his students, and his students loved him back. “He never talked down to them. He always uplifted them. They wanted to give him all they had because he was giving all he had.”
Stanley Gillespie, of Atlanta, died July 9 after battling several different illnesses. He was 73. A memorial service is scheduled for 4 p.m. July 20 at Morningside Baptist Church in Atlanta. The family will receive visitors from 2-3:45 p.m., before the service. H.M. Patterson & Son Oglethorpe Hill is in charge of arrangements.
Gillespie’s favorite author, and his specialty, was William Faulkner.
“We’ve been talking about Faulkner for 30 years,” said friend and McCallie colleague, Bill Boyd. “I would go down to Atlanta and spend the day and we’d talk Faulkner, and he’d drive up to Chattanooga where I was living and we would talk Faulkner for, you know, six or seven hours.”
Gillespie published an essay on Faulkner in 1983 in “Interpretations: A Journal of Ideas, Analysis, and Criticism,” and he visited Faulkner’s stomping grounds in Oxford, Miss. a couple of times. Gillespie’s wife Dodie said his favorite books were “The Sound and the Fury,” “Absolom, Absolom!” and “Light in August.”
Gillespie’s literature classes were always popular with students. He received the Distinguished Teacher Award at McCallie and Pace, and was named a STAR teacher at Pace. Yearbooks from Pace and McCallie were dedicated to him.
“He knew the books; he knew the poems,” said Boyd. “He didn’t just walk through it. He gave them everything he had, and I think the students picked up on that wherever he was.”
In addition to his wife Dodie, of Atlanta, and his daughter Amy, of Brookhaven, Stan Gillespie is survived by his mother Catherine Alton of Gainesville, stepfather Neal Alton of Gainesville, brother Garry Gillespie of Atlanta and two grandchildren.
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