Farewell to Oneonta after 30 Years - August 2019
Main Street, Oneonta Thirty years ago this month, the VanLaeys family moved into an 1870s farmhouse on Brook Street in Oneonta. It was our fifth move in twelve years of marriage. My brother, Chris Lissandrello of Afton and Sidney, helped with the move. I told him that this would be our last. He asked: “So you’re going to be carried out in a box?” “That’s right!” I said. Over the next thirty years we would make the house our own with multiple renovations, mostly done by Mark, who in addition to his work as a P.A. is an accomplished jack-of-all-trades. When we arrived, Mark had a job as a P.A. at Fox Hospital and I had a job taking care of 3-year-old Vera and 1-year-old Peter. I enjoyed taking the kids to Story Time at Huntington Library and Mothers-of-Preschoolers at Main Street Baptist Church. Eventually the kids attended preschool at the same church, and we became members at First United Presbyterian Church. The year t