Jackie Olesky Straight, Susie Ballinger

ST. PATRICK’S DAY STORY

3 tales of long-time friendships

This is a tale to make even non-Irish eyes smiling on St. Patrick’s Day.

Jackie Olesky Straight, Class of 1955, who lives in Rivesville, and Susie Ballinger are best friends celebrating St. Patrick’s Day together.

But that’s not the half of this remarkable story of friendship and being there when it counts the most.

Let Jackie, who has a famous brother who also graduated from Monongah High, tell the story:

“Susie and I have been friends about 19 years.

“Susie and I met more than 19 years ago in our exercise class (at the Fairmont Fitness spa).  Dave had just passed away a few months before so I was still dealing with his passing. 

“We became friends and started visiting with each other.  I met her husband, Larry, and we got along great. 

“When I was in the hospital for a week, Susie came every day to visit and bring goodies.  She was still working as a LPN so her time was limited. 

“On my 75th birthday, she and Larry came over for three days and scraped and power-washed my three wooden garage doors.  I helped them and the third day we spent eight hours painting the doors.  They also paid for the paint.  That is real friendship! 

“Larry passed away two years later from cancer.  I visited them as much as possible through his illness and death.  I was there for Susie as she was for me.  I certainly cherish our friendship!”

This isn’t the first time the Olesky family has been involved in a reciprocal friendship/helping hand.

When Betty Lynn Wilson, a majorette at Monongah High, married Lions football coach Jim Feltz, she was a young bride. Jim and Betty lived in the former Domico house that once housed Junior Domico, the late founder of Fairmont’s Domico Funeral  Home. It was next door to Our Lady of Pompei Church.

So Lena Olesky, mother of Jackie and John Olesky, Jr., Class of 1950, would help Betty get through the early days of her marriage.

When Lena passed away, Betty would check in on our father, John W. Olesky, Sr. If  she didn’t see him, or things didn’t look right, Betty would call Jackie who would investigate to see if Dad was OK.

When Coach Feltz passed away, Jackie and I both were at the Fairmont funeral home to support Betty.

As regular readers of this blog know, Bob Kasper, Class of 1950, and John Olesky have been best friends since they were first graders at Sts. Peter and Paul School in Monongah even though we grew up 2 miles apart.

We went to classes together from first grade through 12^th grade at Monongah High and even our first year at Fairmont State, before I transferred to West Virginia University to finish my degree.

In 1955, Bob sent a Christmas card that referred to “old friends, old times.” I sent Bob (we called him Satch during his Monongah High days because he always wore a cap, like Huntz Hall’s “Satch” character in the “Bowery Boys” movie series) a card with similar sentiments.

We exchange those two cards every year, with the names of all the family members after the year. By now the card tells a story of marriages, births and deaths.

We cried together when our wives, Bob’s Pat and my Monnie, passed away. We had reunions on Florida vacations, in Michigan where Bob lives and in Ohio where I live. I got to Bob’s summer home on Grand Lake (Presque Isle) every summer to play golf. He comes to our Tallmadge home to play golf and go to Mountaineer Field with me for a WVU game.

Friendships are import to the Olesky family.

And it’s not unique to the Oleskys. All over Monongah there are people who laugh, cry and mourn together throughout their lifetimes.

Sure and begorrah (it is St. Patrick’s Day), that’s just the way Monongah folks roll.

This story is familiar to most faithful readers of this Monongah High Alumni blog.

Bob Kasper and John Olesky have been friends since they met in first grade at Sts. Peter and Paul School. That was 79 years ago.

They have remained in touch throughout the decades. At the age of 84 (Bob is 9 months younger than John), they exchange annual visits.

This was John’s annual visit to Bob’s summer home on Grand Lake in Presque Isle, Michigan. As usual, they played golf every day and talked about Monongah High and life since then.

In the fall, Bob comes to Ohio and they go to Mountaineer Field for a WVU football game.

Bob – aka “Satch” in his Monongah High days – and John – aka “Junebug” – will watch another WVU football game together during the 2017 football season.

They have exchanged the same two Christmas cards since 1955. The year of the mailing plus the names of all family members are added to the cards each year.

It serves as a non-Bible record of births, marriages and, yes, deaths.

Bob and his late wife, Pat, purchased their property on Grand Lake in Presque Isle, Michigan in 1989. Before that, they had property on the Lake Huron shore so they have a half-century of up-north living.

The Grand Lake home – Bob’s other home is in South Lyon, Michigan, near his children and five adopted grandchildren -- is only 2 miles from the Lake Huron shoreline.

 

There’s daughter Judith and son Steven and Judith’s daughter and Steven’s three daughters and a son.

Bob’s sister, Evelyn Kasper Boggess, Class of 1953, lives with husband Okey Boggess, a retired coal miner, in the childhood Kasper home on Willow Drive south of Monongah off U.S. 19.

John’s sister, Jackie Olesky Straight, Class of 1955, lives in Rivesville. John's children LaQuita, John Larry and Monnie Ann have provided him with seven grandchildren. And there are two great-grandsons.

After John’s wife, Monnie, passed away in 2004, John and Paula Tucker have shared a home and life for nearly 13 years.

 

Bob and John graduated from Monongah High in the Class of 1950 and attended Fairmont State together till John left for WVU for his final three years.

They have been together for 79 years. And so it will be till one or both of them pass away.

A friend is like a star that twinkles and glows
Or maybe like the ocean that gently flows
A friend is like gold that you should treasure
A friend is someone you can trust

                                       -      - Ashley Campbell

Monongah High alumni history is inundated with lifelong friendships.

The one between Bob Kasper and John Olesky is one of them.

It began when we first saw each other in first grade at Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic School in Monongah. We were allies against the nuns, intimidating in their habits and attitude.

It continued through Monongah High, and our teenage shenanigans that included the police and the Fairmont Field Club swimming pool at 3 a.m., skinnydipping in the river with stolen watermelons and roaming all over Marion County during the summer with The Gang That Terrorized Marion County, a misleading moniker. We were mischievous; never mean.

During those days, Bob was known as “Satch,” because he always wore a cap, just like the character played by Huntz Hall. We didn’t notice that Huntz’ character was Sach, without a “t,” because spelling wasn’t important when you were handling out nicknames like Bruno, Judge, Jake and Satch to The Gang.

It was still there in college when we were teammates on the Fairmont State golf team, and even after I transferred to WVU while Bob stayed at Fairmont State with Lawrence “Sonny” Godby as both of them eyed a career as Navy air pilots.

Sonny passed his physical; Bob’s partial dental plate didn’t. So Bob went in the Army to Germany and Sonny went to Vietnam as a Marine pilot, serving two tours of duty and retiring as a lieutenant colonel before he passed away.

By 1955, I was a sports writer at the Charleston Daily Mail. Bob was an apprentice in a Ford Motor program in Detroit. Bob/Satch mailed a Christmas about “old times, old friends” and it struck a chord. I mailed Bob/Satch a less striking one about friendship. We added the year and the names of family members each year. Like old-time family Bibles, it became a record of marriages, births, deaths.

Those two cards still switch homes in Michigan and Ohio today, 61 years later.

We wept together when my wife, Monnie, passed away and when Bob’s wife, Pat, passed away.

I had a 43-year career as a newspaper editor. Bob went from apprentice to sitting at the bargaining table for Ford Motor across from United Auto Workers negotiators.

We had reunions when both of us vacationed in Florida with our wives. 

Each summer I visited Bob’s summer home on the shores of Grand Lake in Michigan. We play golf and re-live our Monongah High days, talk about our grandchildren and children.

Every autumn Bob visits Tallmadge, Ohio, where Paula and I live. We play golf and re-live our Monongah High days, talk about our grandchildren and children and go to a WVU game in Mountaineer Field together.

Last Saturday, Bob and I wore out our lungs and bodies cheering my alma mater to a come-from-behind, 17-16 victory over Kansas State. WVU trailed the entire game, but Bob and I joined 61,700 fans – the largest in two decades, and the loudest – in the excitement of the thrilling victory.

One year, one of us won’t receive that Christmas card. Till then, we’ll enjoy old times, old friends.

To paraphrase Humprey Bogart’s movie-ending remark to Claude Rains in “Casablanca,” this is the continuation of a beautiful friendship.

For 78 years, since first grade at Sts. Peter and Paul School in Monongah, Bob Kasper and John Olesky, both Class of 1950, have been best friends.

We’ve comforted each other when our wives died. We’re celebrated marriages and births and adoptions together, too.

We’ve exchanged the same two Christmas cards since 1955 – SIXTY ONE YEARS AGO. Since we put the names of all family members next to each year, it’s almost like a family Bible that tells of birthdays, deaths, marriages.

It will be a treasured keepsake to the one who doesn’t go into the Great Beyond first.

And every summer John goes to Bob’s summer home on the shores of Grand Lake in Presque Isle, Michigan. We recall our Monongah High days, our lives and play golf at nearby Rogers City Golf Club.

In autumn, Bob comes to John’s home in Tallmadge, Ohio, which John shares with Paula, for more stoking of good memories and more golf, this time at Brookledge Golf Club in nearby Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. Plus, a WVU football game in Mountaineer Field.

This year, Bob and John will sit alongside each other in Mountaineer Field for the Oct. 22 TCU-WVU game, adjacent to John’s sister, Jacqueline Olesky Straight, Class of 1955, who lives in Rivesville, and Jackie’s daughter, Renee Straight, a Ruby Memorial pharmacist across the Blue Parking Lot from Mountaineer Field.

Bob’s sister, Evelyn Kasper Boggess, Class of 1953, still lives in their childhood home in Frogtown, south of Monongah and just north of Swisher Hill on U.S. 19 between Monongah and Worthington. 

Her husband is retired coal miner Okey Boggess.

John will fly into Alpena, Michigan airport tonight – Monday, July 25. He’ll return to Ohio and Paula on Thursday night, July 28.

Because John won’t have his laptop with him, there will be no Monongah High Alumni blog article till July 29.

You still can email him at jo4wvu@neo.rr.com with any information you think should be shared with other former Lions.

He’ll catch up with the articles when he returns to Ohio.

June & Frances, another beautiful MHS friendship

June Paxton Rogers

Add June Paxton Rogers, and Frances Savereno Pulice, both Class of 1948, to the list of life-long friendships by Monongah High alumni.

Let June tell it:

“In response to your article about MHS lifelong friendships, Frances Savereno Pulice and I met in first grade in Carolina, became good friends which continued through grade school, high school and beyond. 

“We kept in touch all through the years, even attending MHS alumni dinners together until she passed away about a year ago.

“And ... these years have gone by very fast!

“June”

For those who missed the original Monongah High Alumni blog article, here it is:

Friendships are born and beautiful

It’s remarkable how friendships formed at Monongah High last through the decades.

Charleston’s Doris Carpenter Rogers, Class of 1971, daughter of Iris Martin Carpenter, Class of 1950, and Sue Ahouse Schrader, Class of 1971, who lives in Stoney Lonesome and Piscataway, New Jersey, have been friends since second grade.

Nancy Robinson Saunders of Hutchinson and Mary Bienkoski Domico of Monongah, both Class of 1950, were together continuously till death intervened.

Pat Meredith Wills, Class of 1950, who lives in Fairmont and St. Augustine Beach, Florida, and Leona “Duckles” Davis Schooley, Class of 1953, seemed joined at the hips at MHS and beyond.

Virginia DeMary Rossi and Christine “Tina” Tartell Arnett, both Class of 1953, were born on the same day – April 24, 1935 -- and died two hours apart on the same day – August 20, 1982 -- and were best friends for life.

Bob Kasper, who lives in South Lyon and Presque Isle, Michigan, and John Olesky, who lives in Tallmadge, Ohio, have been friends since first grade at Sts. Peter and Paul School and visit each other in Michigan and Ohio every year.

Patti DeMary Evans, Class of 1972, and Debbie Manzo Vandetta, Class of 1973 and married to Monongah Mayor Greg Vandetta, have been friends for most of their 60 years on this earth.

Bill Meredith & John Woods: Another life-long MHS friendship

Bill Meredith, John Woods
East Monongah 2nd grade

At my request, Bill Meredith, Class of 1957, provides his memories of John Woods, Class of 1957:

“John,

“I have known John Woods nearly all of my life.  We went from the first grade at East Monongah Grade School through our graduation from Monongah High School as classmates and good friends.  Our families both attended Monongah Baptist Church. 

John Woods

“He had wonderful Christian parents and I was often at their home throughout my years of living in Monongah.  John's father, Bill, was my Sunday School teacher for many years and was a father figure to me, since my own father passed away when I was six years old.  He had a positive influence on me and all of the young men he taught.

Bill Meredith,
wife Roleta

“Although we don't get to see each other often, John and I have stayed in touch over the years.  I have always thought that the best friends one has in life are those who were your classmates in elementary and high school.  That was especially true in our little corner of West Virginia.  There was something unique about growing up there.  Having friends like John Woods allows me to often get a glimpse of that magical time of my life.

“Thank you for allowing me to recall those happy days when both the world and I were a little more innocent. 

“Bill Meredith, 1957”

John Woods lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. Bill lives in Sarasota, Florida and Buckeye Lake, Ohio.

Bill and John were on the 1955 Monongah High state championship football team. Life-long MHS friendships, as Bill indicated, are nourished by “something unique in growing up” in Monongah and/or going to Monongah High.

Virginia DeMary Rossi and Christine “Tina” Tartell Arnett, both Class of 1953, were born on the same day – April 24, 1935 -- and died two hours apart on the same day – August 20, 1982 -- and were best friends for life.

June Paxton Rogers, Class of 1948, adds her lifetime friendship memories:

“Frances Savereno Pulice and I met in first grade in Carolina, became good friends which continued through grade school, high school and beyond.  We kept in touch all through the

years, even attending MHS alumni dinners together until she passed away about a

year ago.  And ... these years have gone by very fast!”

Frances, also Class of 1948, passed away in 2014. She was the widow of Johnny Pulice, Sr., 1944 Farmington High grad.

Frances’ brothers Tony Savereno, Class of 1941, and Orlando Savereno, also are deceased. 

Charleston’s Doris Carpenter Rogers, Class of 1971, daughter of Iris Martin Carpenter, Class of 1950, and Sue Ahouse Schrader, Class of 1971, who lives in Stoney Lonesome and Piscataway, New Jersey, have been friends since second grade.

Nancy Robinson Saunders of Hutchinson and Mary Bienkoski Domico of Monongah, both Class of 1950, were together continuously till death intervened – Nancy first, then Scoogum’s widow.

Pat Meredith Wills, Class of 1950, who lives in Fairmont and St. Augustine Beach, Florida, and Leona “Duckles” Davis Schooley, Class of 1953, seemed joined at the hips at MHS and beyond.

Patti DeMary Evans, Class of 1972, and Debbie Manzo Vandetta, Class of 1973 and married to Monongah Mayor Greg Vandetta, have been friends for most of their three score-plus years on this earth. Bob Kasper, who lives in South Lyon and Presque Isle, Michigan, and John Olesky, who lives in Tallmadge, Ohio, have been friends since first grade at Sts. Peter and Paul School and visit each other in Michigan and Ohio every year. Bob -- aka “Satch” in our younger days – and John were classmates for 13 years, including John’s first year at Fairmont State.

To read the earlier, extensive article and photos about the Woods family, particularly John, click on http://jo4wvu.blogspot.com/search?q=catching+up+with+john+woods

John Woods is the 4th player from Coach Jim Feltz in 2nd row
Bill Meredith is in 5th row, 2nd from left