[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 133 (Tuesday, September 29, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H9182]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      ON THE DEATH OF MARY MATHEWS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Bateman) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BATEMAN. Mr. Speaker, it is with exceeding regret that I advise 
my colleagues of the death of a great American and one of the most 
beloved Virginians of this era in the illustrious history of our 
Commonwealth.
  My reference is to Mary Mathews, a Greek American who has been a 
towering example of patriotism. Mary had a love affair with her adopted 
country and, of all the people I have known, none surpassed her in her 
caring for those who serve our Nation in our military service.
  Mary Mathews was the widow of Nick Mathews, himself a great American 
patriot. Together they founded and built Nick's Seafood Pavilion in 
Yorktown, Virginia and made it a highly successful and profitable 
restaurant operation. Their success, founded on their hard work and 
dedication to quality, was shared with their community, State and 
Nation. Their joint philanthropy while Nick lived and Mary's continued 
generosity after his death are legendary.
  As a resident of Yorktown, which is the site of the battle that 
procured our Nation's independence, Mary had a special reverence for 
what Yorktown and the success of the American Revolution meant, not 
only to Americans but to people throughout the globe. Most 
appropriately, Mary Mathews was chosen by the Navy to be the sponsor of 
the Aegis Class Cruiser, U.S.S. Yorktown. She understood this to be a 
signal honor, and no ship or its crew were ever more generously 
recognized by their sponsor than the cruiser U.S.S. Yorktown by their 
sponsor Mary Mathews.
  My wife, Laura, and I have had a warm, close relationship with Nick 
and Mary Mathews since at least May 29, 1954, when we stopped there for 
our first dinner as husband and wife following our wedding on that 
date. We were with Mary in Pascagoula, Mississippi when she, with great 
elan, christened the U.S.S. Yorktown, the day following the death of 
her beloved husband, Nick, before yielding to her grief.
  We were with Mary when the U.S.S. Yorktown was sent by the Navy to 
Yorktown for its commissioning ceremony. You would have had to have 
been there to fully appreciate the joy that occasion gave to Mary 
Mathews and the special relationship between her and the crew of the 
U.S.S. Yorktown.
  Finally, you needed to be on the site of the Battle of Yorktown, on 
October 19, 1981, when Mary Mathews, immigrant patriot, stood on the 
200th anniversary of the surrender of Cornwallis, alongside President 
Reagan and President Mitterand of France, basking in the pride of being 
an American and living in one of America's special places, 
commemorating a very special event.
  God bless Mary Mathews, and as she would say, God bless America, the 
land she so truly loved.

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