Lothar "Bud" Fieg, eldest surviving sibling from the original
Fieg family homestead in
Oneonta, N.Y. and beloved family patriarch, died in Ste. Genevieve, MO on January 28, 2009 from complications of a lengthy illness. He was 89.
He was born August 22, 1919 in
Oneonta to
Lothar E. Fieg and
Florence Shields Fieg, graduating from
Oneonta High School in 1937. He received a degree in mine engineering from the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, before embarking on a career that saw him rise to the position of
superintendent at the Mississippi Lime Co. in Ste. Genevieve, where he supervised more than three hundred employees at the time of his retirement.
A number of his former mining colleagues recalled him as competent, fair and kind.
"Sometimes we thought he ought to crack the whip a little more, that he was too nice a guy," recalled retired mine foreman
Roseman Tucker, who answered directly to the man known in the mine simply as "Red. "Of course, that wasn't a fault. It was a credit to him."
"Bud was a very brilliant person," said
Col.
Clifford R. "
Roger" Silliman, (USAF
Ret.), 88, of
Lompoc, CA. "Learning came very easy to him."
Silliman recalled that he and his lifelong friend were partners in the operation of a modest, commercial bicycle shop when the two were teenagers in
Oneonta. Though Bud had no formal training, he quickly grasped the dynamics of mechanics, teaching himself to dissemble and reassemble parts in the rebuilding of scrapped bicycles for resale.
"We got so we could
respoke an entire wheel," said
Silliman, who ran the shop out of the basement of his father's house.
Bud enlisted in the Army Air Corps at the outset of World War II, serving as a fighter pilot with the Eighth Air Force in England. Flying P-40 Thunderbolts and P-51 Mustangs, he escorted U.S. bombers en route to Germany on perilous daylight bombing runs, and at one point was forced to parachute to safety after an engine he was testing burst into flames over England.
He was discharged in 1945 with the rank of captain.
He married
Catherine Shafer of
Oneonta and they raised five children in Ste. Genevieve. Catherine died in 1976.
In 1977 he married
Rachel Dickson Taylor, who also preceded him in death. In retirement, they traveled the globe.
Bud served on the Ste. Genevieve R-II School Board, where he was a leading advocate of a controversial school construction bond issue in the 1970s.
Lorraine Spang, a school teacher during that period, recalled him as unwavering in his support of school improvements, urging voters not to re-elect him if they could not also support new school financing.
"
Lothar Fieg was an
unpurchasable man,"
Spang said. "By that I mean he couldn't be bought. He was a man of very high integrity, and he lived his Christian values every day of his life.... He literally walked the way he talked."
Nephew
Greg Fieg of San Antonio, TX called his uncle "a man of great charity and generosity."
He remembered that when his father, Bud's brother,
Frank Fieg, fell on hard times as he tried to run the family business during the recession of the early 1960s, Bud was there to help without being asked.
"On more than one occassion, the Christmas card from Ste. Genevieve would arrive with a $50 bill in it," Fieg said. "And this was when $50 was truly a lot of money, and it came from a man who had more than his share of his own problems trying to support a wife and five children."
He volunteered tirelessly for various local Presbyterian endeavors, and was granted a life membership at the church, which he and Catherine joined in 1949. He served on the board.
Survivors include sisters
Maxine (Robert) Whiteside of Sioux City, IA and
Dorothy Roman of
Bridgewater, NJ; four sons,
Richard (Cindy) and
Steven (Eleanor) of Ste. Genevieve,
Russell (Heny) of Henderson, NV and
Douglas (Cindy) of
Soma, CA, a daughter,
Susan (Ed) Williams, of Chicago and a sister-in-law
Jean Davie Fieg.
He also leaves grandchildren
Laura and Brian Fieg of Atlanta, GA,
Tamra (Thomas) Bradford of
Festus, MO,
Brenna Furgason of Ste. Genevieve and numerous nieces and nephews.
He was preceded in death by his parents and by his brothers
Victor Philip and
Franklin and two sisters
Emilie McGonigal and
Florence Bookhout.A wake will be held 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Monday, Feb. 2, at the Wood Family Funeral Home, 223 Market St, Ste Genevieve (Ph: 573-883-3555). The funeral services will follow at the funeral home.
After the procession to the cemetery there will be a pot luck type meal served by the Presbyterian Women's Club at the Presbyterian Church fellowship hall area.
Donations may be made in his memory to the Presbyterian Church Memorial Fund, 160 S. Main St., Ste Genevieve, MO 63670. (ph: 573-883-3273). Flowers have not been requested by the family, but will be gratefully accepted from those who desire to send them. They can be ordered from Buy the Bunch/Rehm's Florist, 518 S 4th St., Ste Genevieve, MO (ph: 573-883-2109.
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