Small world, twice in one day

Talk about a small world.

Paula and I are in The Villages, Florida for four months in the home she purchased last March. I had to go to Sumter Landing to sign up for the ability to get golf tee times online.

As I was walking down the street in my WV jacket (of course), two women sitting in the outside patio of a restaurant said: “I like your jacket. From the best state.”

Debbie Rogers Truno, John Olesky

So I stopped and we talked. One woman was from Philippi and the other from Elkins. I first said I was from Fairmont, because few people know where Monongah is. Later, I said I was from Monongah.

Whamo!

Debbie Rogers Truno of Elkins said she often visited her cousin, Betty Lynn Wilson Feltz, Class of 1954, in Monongah.

Debbie’s mother, Leanna Rogers, and Betty’s mother, Dorothy Rogers Wilson, were sisters! Dorothy married Monongah Bank president Faye Wilson.

My mother, Lena Futten Olesky, helped former MHS majorette Betty get started as a teenage wife when Betty and Monongah High football coach Jim Feltz bought the green Domico house next to Our Lady of Pompeii Church, 3 doors down from the Oleskys on Church Street. 

When Mom died, Betty checked in regularly on my father, John W. Olesky, Sr., and notified my sister, Jackie Olesky Straight, Class of 1955, who lives in Rivesville, if anything seemed awry.

Jackie and her late husband, Dave Straight, would babysit their son, Jay Feltz, the quarterback who brought Monongah High its 1973 state football title, while Betty and Jim went out for the evening.

At Fairmont West High, the late Jaimie Feltz Riley’s son Jayce Riley was best friends with Adam Morris, Jackie and Dave’s grandson whose mom is Belinda Straight Morris, Jackie and Dave’s daughter.

 

John Olesky, Dick Reed

Before running into Betty’s cousin, I played golf on the Silver Lake course in The Villages. I was assigned randomly to a foursome.

 

Dick Reed of Lansing, Michigan, who lives on Kelsea Circle in The Villages, also was in the group. We got to talking about where we lived up north and in The Villages and I gave him the address of Paula’s Florida home.

 

Well, the house that Paula bought in March is the one that Dick bought in 1997 and sold in 2000 to the late couple whose children sold it to Paula.

 

Dick had the cheapest carpeting he could find put down in the home in 2000 “so I could sell the house.”

The first thing Paula did was replace the cheap 15-year-old carpeting with laminated wood.

It made a tremendous improvement.

 

So it was a small world – twice – on this day in The Villages, where there are more than 300 activities listed on its web site EVERY day.