Seventy is The New Forty!

On this day, back in 1948, Lothar Fieg Sr. and his wife Catherine welcomed a little red-head into their family.

Susan F. Fieg was born at Fox Hospital in Oneonta, N.Y., the second of five siblings.  According to her baby brother, Steven, "Mom told her mother-in-law (Florence Celestia Shields Fieg) that the F was for Florence, but her birth certificate has just an F....  Aunt Catherine, of course, named her onlyiest daughter after  her mother, 'Susan' Maria Rosecrans Shafer."

We wish this lovely woman a happy birthday and a wonderful year ahead.  Proud to have you as a cousin, Sue!

Susan and Catherine on Susan's baptism day, 1948

Susan, Catherine and Lothar "Bud" Fieg, baptism day

Hallelujah!  Another red-head!  Emilie Fieg McGonigal with 

her niece, Susan

100th Wedding Anniversary Observed by Fiegs

Sept. 3 marks the 100th wedding anniversary of Florence Shields and Lothar Fieg who famously were married while holding hands through a window overlooking a porch.

Florence May Shields Fieg

Hermann Lothar Emil Fieg

Florence, who was suffering from scarlet fever, an often fatal disease at the time, was taken from the boarding house run by her mother, Celestia, in Corbett, N.Y. to the Mary Mason house, a resort on the Delaware River in nearby Colchester, where she was kept under quarantine.

Lothar, a foreman at the Corbett and Stewart Acid Factory in Corbett, climbed up on the roof of the porch and took Florence's hand while the vows were recited.

 

The boarding house in Corbett had been operated by Celestia, and Florence and all her sisters had domestic chores to perform there as part of the operation.   "My mother was a good cook and a good baker," said Thelma Bost, daughter of Florence's sister Nettie.  "She was about 6 or 7 when she had to start making cakes to serve to the boarders."  Thelma, age 88, recalled that the girls had to go to the company store for supplies and sister Marie insisted on carrying the heavy goods back to the house, to Nettie's delight. 

It is believed that the boarding house, which was owned and operated by Corbett and Stewart from the 1920s to 1930s, when the company folded, is still standing.  The remains of the Mary Mason house are under 50 feet of water in the Pepacton Reservoir.

Florence and Lothar's eldest child, Emilie, was born June 29, 1915 (yep, that's nine months!).  The couple later moved to Oneonta, where the other six were born. 

Bobby McGonigal Visits Diana Monaco

By Judy Kestner

Diana Monaco, middle daughter of the FFN founder V.P. Fieg, sent this message (lightly edited) about a visit from her first cousin Bobby McGonigal, youngest son of Emilie Fieg McGonigal, Philip's sister:

Just wanted you to know I had a nice visit from Bobby McGonigal yesterday. Bob's son Tyler lives with his wife about 20 minutes from me in Ft. Montgomery, NY.  Bob is dog-sitting for them while they take a vacation in San Diego, California.

He took the train from Rochester, NY to Croton-on-Hudson NY and was in awe of the sea of cars in the station’s parking lot.

Bob brought some pictures of his family -- wife Mary and sons Kyle & Tyler -- along with some Fieg & McGonigal photos that he had inherited from his mother. I showed him the photos that Steven Fieg had emailed me months ago and, when he saw the picture of his mother, Emilie, at the Fieg picnic he noted that her outfit was green. He said all her clothes were green and she didn’t wear any other color. Do you suppose it was because of her vibrant red hair?


Bob is retired from Eastman Kodak and spends his time hunting and fishing. Mary just got a job in the SUNY Brockport library where they did a background check on her and came up with Uncle Jim, or as they called him, J.J., McGonigal. Uncle Jim had been the head of all maintenance for SUNY Oneonta back when the McGonigals lived in Milford Center, NY., so they said she seemed to be very well connected.


Bill (Doyle) came home while Bob was here and they talked about Rochester, NY where Bill grew up, identifying places they both recognized. Bill spent much of his childhood with the LaVigne family in a cobblestone house on Ridge Road in Spencerport, NY, just outside of Rochester. The LaVignes had 10 children so I guess it was one of those, ‘What’s one more?’ kind of attitudes that Grandpa & Grandma had with Bob Wood in Oneonta at 10 North Sixth Street. The difference was that in Bill’s story, his father died and his mother had a hard time dealing with things whereas Bob Wood’s parents had divorced and Bob was living with his aunt. Bob McGonigal said he passed by that cobblestone house every day on his way to work from Kendall, NY to Eastman Kodak.


Bob was upset that there were no Wegman’s supermarkets in the Croton area but was amazed that we still have an A&P.

Here is a photo of Bobby in his younger days...

McGonigals Relocate to Virginia

By Judy Kestner

Marilyn McGonigal, wife of Jon McGonigal, dropped your editor a lovely note the other day, which I have copied, lightly edited, below.  She also kindly enclosed three photos that I will attempt to insert as well.

Dear Judy -
.... The move was very hard but we are here now and settling in and love it here.
     Our new address is 1500 N. Coalter St. #E-4, Staunton, VA 24401.  We live in an apartment complex (5 buildings) and outdoor swimming pool in the middle.  We have 3 bedrooms, kitchen, small dinette area and 2 full baths! (I love that!)
.... I am taking line dance lessons one hour per week and helping in an after school program two afternoons.  Have made three new friends - play cards and go walking and to church with them.
    Jon and I go to this beautiful park and feed the ducks.

Also enclosed is a photo of the Blue Ridge Mts.  We have gone across Sky Line Drive twice since we've been down here.

    Hope to visit in N.Y. around Thanksgiving.

    Love to all,

          Marilyn

Also enclosed was this photo of Jon's mother, Emilie Fieg McGonigal (b. June 29, 1915, d. January 15, 1984), taken in the '60s.  I was amused to see my mother's handwriting on the back -- what goes around etc....!

McGonigal Cousins Head South

Jon McGonigal, eldest son of Emilie Fieg McGonigal and first grandchild of Lothar Fieg Sr., will pull up his New York roots and, with wife Marilyn, move to the Blue Ridge Mountain city of Staunton, VA.

Marilyn writes that she and Jon will soon visit Staunton (pronounced "Stanton"), home of the Statler Brothers of country music fame, to look around, check out apartments and visit with her son.  They plan to be all moved in by August 1 of this year.

Staunton, first settled in 1732, is nestled in the Shenandoah Valley and I will bet that Jon and Marilyn will have many visitors there.

For the rest of you, please send empty boxes!

By the way, if you have forgotten what Jon looks like....

McGonigal Walks Out on Hollywood

Robert J. McGonigal of Kendall, N.Y., recently completed his first year of retirement from Eastman Kodak at Rochester, N.Y. where he had worked as a line mechanic in the production of bulk film stock for thousands of major Hollywood movies.

Recruited almost providentially at 21 by Kodak after graduating from the automotive program at Delhi Agricultural and Technical College, Bobby completed 34 years at the company, enabling him to accept a buyout at the age of 55.

Bobby's departure marks an ongoing corporate purge, which has seen his company diminished from a sustained workforce of some 60,000 to a mere 10,000 or so, with further cutbacks anticipated. The once bustling complex has been reduced in many sections to an almost desolate sprawl of building after building silenced and shuttered as Kodak downsizes to keep pace with overseas competition and cutthroat off-shore production costs, which in some cases are government subsidized.

Bobby has spent much of his first year of retirement at home with his family and indulging himself with his hobbies of off-road and highway motorcycling, fishing and hunting large and small game with his 12-gauge Remington pump or with bow and arrow. Not long he ago returned from a three-week adventure seeking elusive, 1,200-pound elk in Colorado.

Bobby and his family each summer visit historic Cooperstown, where his son Kyle McGonigal, 27, works security during induction week at the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Kyle works for the Buffalo Bills during football season, and is on a first-name basis with quarterback Trent Edwards, running back Marshawn Lynch and other stars.

Continuing to work as a secretary at State University of New York at Brockport is Bobby's wife Mary McGonigal, easily the most beautiful debutant ever to emerge from Portlandville. Come to think of it, she is the only debutant ever to emerge from Portlandville.

Bobby and Mary were Milford High School sweethearts, and have known one another since childhood, as Bobby's boyhood home in Milford Center is just a short jaunt to Portlandville.

Bobby is the son of the late James McGonigal, plant superintendent at State University of New York at Oneonta, and the late Emilie Fieg McGonigal, who was an avid gardener, cook, antique collector and doll maker.

When Bobby was a toddler, the family's 1825 homestead was memorable for its black cast iron wood stove on which his mother prepared all the family meals, an original, old-time, wooden, handcranked magneto wall telephone, and even a two-hole indoor privy (which had been replaced by indoor plumbing sometime previously).

In Milford Center Bobby can still be remembered as Teedee, the name his playmates gave him after hearing his mother addressing him as such. Teedee is how you say "Sweetie" in baby talk. Please be advised that it is no longer permissible to call him Teedee.