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 that Peter started kindergarten at Center Street School, my parents moved here from Long Island to be closer to us and Chris’s family.  Grammy and Grampa became a regular part of our lives; sharing every day and holiday dinners, coming over to see the kids’ puppet shows, attending their school concerts and plays, and taking care of them when Mark and I wanted a night out.

            Over the years Mark and I have found a variety of ways to become involved in the community. Both of us have been members of the Oneonta Interfaith Committee, and in 1993

I spearheaded the Building Bridges Forum which helped followers of different faiths to have a better understanding of one another. We attended the Interfaith Thanksgiving service every year to celebrate the diversity and common beliefs within our community. Mark has worked as a mediator with Catholic Charities and I was one of the founding coordinators for Saturday’s Bread. We have both filled the pulpits as speakers at FUPC and UUSO, and recently I have offered homilies at the new Institute for Spiritual Development.

            After a few years in the Fox Emergency Department Mark worked as a P.A. at the Southern Otsego Health Center in Worcester and then Perella Wellness Center at Hartwick College. He also had a home repair business and built beautiful decks and garages all around the area. The most beautiful garage is ours. It looks like a little cottage with a dormer window on the second floor where Mark’s music studio is. A singer-songwriter, Mark has frequently performed at churches and the Community Arts Network of Oneonta. 

            When Vera and Peter were in school, I wrote, sometimes for national periodicals, but also for the Daily Star. I taught writing workshops and read some of my work at local venues. Eventually I held part-time jobs with the Indian Hills Girl Scout Council, Susquehanna Valley Presbytery, and Catskill Rural AIDS Services. I taught a composition class at Hartwick College and substituted in the Oneonta and Unatego Schools. Many of the weddings I performed as a celebrant were right here in Otsego County.

            All the while that we were living and working in Oneonta, Mark and I were making friends and finding more and more to appreciate about this town and the surrounding area. We have enjoyed plays, concerts, and art shows; the parks, pool, and Gilbert Lake. We work out at the YMCA and ride our tandem bike in the countryside. Mark takes his motorcycle on the back roads, and we kayak on the Susquehanna.

            Vera and Peter went to colleges in Albany and Troy. After graduation in 2010 Peter took a job as a software developer for Epic in Madison, Wisconsin. Eventually, after graduate school in Albany, and marriage to a music teacher, Vera also moved to Wisconsin to work as a school psychologist. Mark and I have made many trips to Wisconsin to visit our kids, and eventually grandkids.

            My January column listed some of the reasons that Mark and I wanted to stay in Oneonta. We love this town. My parents are both residents at Fox Nursing Home, and I visit them often. My brother and his wife just bought a house on Afton Lake where we’ve been invited to swim and kayak! But circumstances change. Vera and Zachary have moved with their children to New York, then back to Wisconsin. Their son is on the autism spectrum. We feel that we can help with his special needs and be a loving presence in our grandchildren’s lives. We also want to see more of Peter who has been asking us to move to Wisconsin ever since he went there nine years ago.

            This was a difficult decision. As one friend said: “We are woven into the fabric of the Oneonta community.” We feel the fabric tearing as we prepare for this move. It hurts. Love has kept us here for a long time. But now love calls us to the Midwest. I keep thinking of the lines in a Bob Franke song that Mark sings: “What can you do with each moment of your life, but love til you’ve loved it away?” That’s what we’re going to do.