Forrest William Getzen

1928 - 2025

Forrest William Getzen

January 30, 2025

Atlanta, Georgia - On January 30th, Forrest William Getzen joined his beloved wife, Evangeline (Vangie), who left us last year on January 29th. Forrest and Vangie, married for 68 years, lived at Canterbury Court in Atlanta, Georgia for the past eight years after moving from their home of 58 years in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Born on the 28th of February in 1928 in Stuart, Florida, Forrest was the third child of Thompson Hartman Getzen and Rachel Clonts Getzen. He was a welcoming bridge between his two older brothers, Lindsay and Jim, and his two younger sisters, Harriet and baby Florence. From a very early age, Forrest maintained strong discipline, exceptional daring, and an air of mystery. Left to his own devices while his father built a legal career and his mother ran an in-house tearoom during the Great Depression, Forrest was a free-range child, exploring surrounding fields and farmlands by foot and bike. With a twinkle in his eye, Forrest often told of how he would sneak through neighbors' garden patches, pick the freshest produce, and then circle back to sell the bounty to those same neighbors.

Throughout his years at Pasco County High School, Forrest worked as a soda jerk, perfecting his swing of the soda handle when adding fizz to fountain drinks. Forrest was fascinated with the combustible combinations of carbonated concoctions, and it was here that his love of chemistry first took hold. Forrest also loved flying and earned a solo aviator license at the age of 16. He was known to "borrow" a local Piper Cub occasionally to practice flyovers across the county and beyond. The summer after graduating from high school, he and a friend hopped a train (sans tickets) to Le Sueur, Minnesota, garnering jobs at the Minnesota Valley Cannery (later the Green Giant Company) canning peas. When he returned home, a spot at VMI awaited and so Forrest beat it up to Lexington, Virginia, following in his father's footsteps.

At VMI, Forrest reprised his soda jerk experience, majoring in chemistry. He graduated as a member of Company 1950-B with a Bachelor of Science. VMI's yearbook, The Bomb, listed Forrest's accomplishments as "Distinguished Military Student, Photographic Editor, Academic Star, and Officer of the Guard Association." It described Forrest as a "denizen of the Everglades" with "the twang of the real old-time Florida cracker" which earned him the reputation as a teller of "whale killer" tales. "Gets" was remembered as "a model of virile young manhood; he neither smokes, drinks nor gambles; his only vice is women."

Forrest's smarts won him a chemistry teaching gig at VMI for two years following graduation. He then entered the Air Force, teaching at Laughlin AFB in Del Rio, Texas. After several years, Forrest was asked to reup but instead chose to pursue a PhD in chemistry at MIT. There, he held a teaching fellowship, a science scholarship, and was a member of Sigma Xi fraternity. At lunch one day in the campus cafeteria, Forrest spotted Vangie at the other end of a long table. The attractive young woman was auditing a chemistry class. With all confidence, Forrest introduced himself to Vangie who explained that she had no head for numbers and worried about her progress in a course she needed to master, given her job as a junior editor of a scientific journal. Forrest immediately offered free tutoring, schooling Vangie on the periodic table and chemical combinations of all sorts. Her reaction to Forrest was instantaneous, like adding fizz to a fountain drink, and so began their lifelong romance.

With doctorate in hand, Forrest, the Southern Baptist, married Vangie in the Orthodox Greek Church in Portland, Maine. They then embarked on a five-week honeymoon, driving to Boothbay Harbor, Maine and then down the Atlantic coast to Lakeland, Florida where Vangie was introduced to her in-laws for the very first time. When Vangie asked her mother-in-law if she was disappointed that her son had married a Greek girl, Rachel replied, "No, but you're a Yankee!"

From 1956 to 1961, Forrest served as a research engineer at Humble Oil in Houston, Texas. He became disenchanted with the work because in his words, he "did not want to conduct research when the findings were pre-determined." Leaving the comfort of the Humble Oil lab, he accepted a position as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Over 40 years later, he retired as Professor Emeritus.

Early in his career at State, Forrest, now a father of three small children, spotted a notice on the department bulletin board calling for professors to create an engineering program in Afghanistan. Intrigued, and without talking with Vangie, Forrest applied and was selected. From 1964 to 1967, he served as senior science advisor for the United States Engineering Team in the Engineering School at Kabul University. During those years, Forrest and Vangie traveled throughout Europe, Asia and into the Soviet Union, with their three young children in tow, all packed in a white VW Beetle. Once, Forrest took all three to the top of one of the Buddas in Bamiyan (well before they were destroyed by the Taliban), letting the children dance on the Budda head, hundreds of feet above the ground and with no guardrails. On Easter one year, Forrest and Vangie took the children to Kashmir when war broke out between Pakistan and India. Forrest secured safe passage for the family out of the country with an American photographer in his Land Rover, a trip of that took them on a circuitous 2,000-mile route back to Kabul.

Once stateside, Forrest and Vangie built robust social and professional lives, resettling into their Raleigh home on Banbury Road. Forrest advanced his career in the field of chemistry, publishing books and articles that expanded our knowledge about thermodynamics and colloid and surface chemistry. He was a longstanding member of the American Chemical Society, the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers, and the American Society for Quality Control. He was a Fellow and Professional Chemist, Accredited in the American Institute of Chemists. In 1997, Forrest was presented the North Carolina Distinguished Chemists Award by the North Carolina Institute of Chemists for his four decades of "outstanding service and excellence in the chemical and educational profession."

Forrest will be missed terribly for his exceptional intellect, quiet dignity, disciplined lifestyle, and fantastical storytelling. He leaves behind his three children and their spouses, Hart (Brooke), Katherine (Dan), and Peter, six blessed grandchildren (Charlie and David; Forrest, Hart and Anna; and Bryce), and many nieces and nephews. A service in remembrance of Forrest will be held Friday, February 28th, 2025, at 4:00 pm in the Chapel of Canterbury Court. Those wishing to honor his memory are encouraged to donate to VMI or a charity of their choice. Forrest's family is forever grateful to so many at Canterbury Court for their excellent care of the Getzens over the years, especially Jonathan, Jackie, Brandie, the two Erins, as well as Atlanta Hospice.