Victor Higgs, son of 1919 Monongah High graduate, passes away

Victor C. Higgs, Jr., whose father was in the second graduation class in Monongah High history, passed away Monday, June 8 at his Fairmont home.

Victor Higgs, Sr., Class of 1919, married to Edith Higgs of Davis Ridge, died in 1956.

Victor’s classmates were Mattie Martin Clelland, who married John Clelland and moved to Catawba; Myra Martin Stewart, who married Glenn Stewart and moved to Beckley; Genevieve Fluharty Parrish, who moved to National City, California; David Anderson, who moved to Fairmont; and Raymond Jones, who moved to Denver, Colorado.

Matthie, born in 1902, married Glenn in 1928 and had a daughter, Nancy June Clelland.  Mattie’s parents were Howard Neison Martin and Lulu C. Wolfe Martin.

The first Monongah High graduation class was in 1918, when Sylvia Swisher, William Fay Holbert, Robert Jones and Dr. Stanley Skarr of Davis, West Virginia, who out-lived the others, started this run that didn’t end till the 1979 graduation class and the migration to North Marion consolidation.

In 1922, Greta Martin Mike, who married barber Jimmy Mike and lived in Monongah, started the first Monongah High Alumni Reunion, which had its 92^nd Reunion in May with 120 in attendance at the Knights of Columbus Hall on Mary Lou Retton Drive in Fairmont.

It was Greta who began compiling Monongah High graduation lists that I use today in putting together information on this Monongah High Alumni blog. It also was Greta who began the practice of finding out where former Lions lived and putting in their post-Monongah High addresses and marital information.

Ramona Fullen Michalski took up the cause after Greta passed away. Ramona has been my right-hand woman for Monongah High information ever since, along with the 1973 North Marion Alumni Directory that includes Monongah High graduates.

Bob Kasper, my friend since we were first graders at Sts. Peter and Paula School in Monongah, gave me the 1973 North Marion directory that belonged to his late sister, Helen Kasper Sayres, who, like Bob, moved to Michigan after Monongah High.

So there’s a direct line from Greta Martin Mike to Ramona Fullen Michalski to John Olesky, Jr. as keepers of the flame of Monongah High alumni and memories. I’m proud to keep the conduit flowing for former Lions.

As most of your know, I go to Bob’s summer home on Grand Lake (Presque Isle), Michigan for several days of golf and Bob -- aka Satch during his Monongah High days – leaves his South Lyon, Michigan winter home to visit Paula and me in our Tallmadge, Ohio home (an Akron suburb) and Bob and I go to a WVU game in Mountaineer Field.

I will be on Grand Lake with Bob July 23-28 and Bob will be in Mountaineer Field with me for the Oklahoma State game Oct. 10, wrapping a few days in Tallmadge around that date.

If you’re near Alpena or Rogers City, Michigan or will be at a Mountaineer Field game, call me at (330) 388-4466 and we’ll have a Monongah High mini-reunion. I have lunch or dinner at one of the Morgantown restaurants on University Centre hill off I-79 near the Star City Bridge before or after every game.

The obituary for Victor C. Higgs, Jr.: