Difference between revisions of "Niemczyk, Rosalie (nee Walsh)"

Latest revision as of 03:19, 1 January 2020

Bethpage High School Faculty - School Teacher, guidance counselor, historian.

Rosalie was born September 15, 1938 in the immediate aftermath of the great hurricane of "38 earlier that month. My parents (both now deceased) were Virginia McGunnigle and Aloysius Walsh. We lived on Romscho Street for many yuears in a little bungalow that had been built, circa 1915, by Gus Holzmacher for his widowed mother. Pauline and Ed Wilson, of the Beau Sejour fame, were our abutting back yard neighbors. I knew Donald Wilson (their oldest child) very well.

Years later, 1963 to be exact, I married Leo Niemczyk's older cousin, Frank, who with his parents (Viola Abramowski and Frank Niemczyk, Jr.) and his sister Eileen, lived at Floral Avenue in "Swedetown" before moving to Round Swamp Road in 1954. The Niemczyks had a potato and truck farm for many years on Haypath Road.

In 1955, my parents purchased a cape cod house #23 Arthur Avenue right near the Old Motor Parkway. That house originally belonged to the Lonergan family. Patricia Lonergan graduated from Farmingdale High School in the class of 1946 with my husband, Frank Niemczyk. Frank worked the Niemczyk Farm for a short time and then went to work for the Long Island Lighting Co.on June 13, 1949. He started as a lineman and worked himself up to management and retired from overhead lines and services in 1986 from the Riverhead office. Also, in 1986, I resigned from the faculty at Bethpage High School (to young to retire) and Frank and I sold our lovely Nissequogue, L. I. home and moved upstate to Bath, N. Y. in Steuben County. We purchased 70 acres of rolling land and meadows and tillable fields and built a large home with farm out buildings. We had 10 horses, and I have one left after all these years. Frank loved being "back on the farm." He raised and sold mnay crops and produce to local restaurantnts and consumers.

When my parents came upstate to live with us in their twilight years, Frank and pop (Al Walsh) threw their talents together and farmed for several years before papa died and Frank sucummed to the horrible vestiges of severe diabetes in 2004.

I continue to remain here at "Hidden Pond Farm" with my one pony, some dogs and cats. We sold off, by 2003, 30 acres out of the 70 original acres. Just recently, I sold all of the buildings, including the Big House, 3 acre stocked (Bass) pond, and another 30 acres, to a young ambitious young couple and two darling young children. It is time to pass the tourch. I have purchased a manufactured home and I am having it placed on the last 10 acres that I kept for myself.

Incidental Data - Grumman's Plants 2 & 5 were located on what was the McGunnigle potato farm (my mother's side of the family).

The Walsh Farm, next to Pete and May DeLalio on Hicksville Road, was sold for housing development after my grandfather, Joseph Walsh, died. Granpa died in 1950 and his sons, Joe, Al, John and Mike farmed the land till about 1953 - 1955 then grandam Walsh sold it all, but kept a couple of acres and the old farmhouse for herself. "Walsh Brothers Farms" then moved out to Stony Brook in Suffolk County.

Rosalie reminded us of her parents friends - names I am sure many will remember. Mike and Lilly Looney of Sophia Street, Elizabeth and Paul Sennett (Paul worked for the Post Office and Elizabeth taught grade school at Bethpage for years) The Olson's lived down the stree from us on 9 Arthur Avenue. They were contractors and stone masons, and excellent ones at that. They had 12 children.

Rosalie enjoyed hearing about Harry and Joan Settino (in past Newsletter), as she taught with Harry for many years at B.H.S. She told about the faculty follies which she wrote and directed and raised thousands of dollars for the high school scholarship fund. - Information from Central Park Historical Society Newsletter - May 2009.

Rosalie was selected, for 8 years in a row, for membership in Who's Who Of American Women in 1983.

Rosalie graduated, with the first graduating class of 1956, from Bethpage High School as salutatorian. She holds three permanent teaching certificates in education - for general commercial subjects; Spanish; and guidance and counseling while working on the completion of her secondary administrator's license.

Founder - Ladies' Village Improvement Society of the Three Villages; Member, Smithtown/Three Village and Farmingdale-Bethpage Historical Societies; fundraiser, St. Charles Hospital Expansion Wing program; President, Humane Society of Suffolk County; Past-president Three Village Garden Club; Phi Delta Kappa Education, Honorary; Alumni Association, SUNY at Albany; Past Grand Regent, Court Our Lady of the Skies, Catholic Daughters of America; Daughter of the War of 1812; Daughter of the Civil War of the United States; pioneer innovator and developer of floor plans for the establishment of Career Centres in secondary schools. Member of the Sierra Club; member, Friends of Animals; member, Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty of Animals, London England; member, Society for the Preservation of Mustangs and Burros; member, Registered Quarter Horse Owners Association; moderator, champion-winning Legal Eagles of Bethpage High School; co-moderator, Bethpage Animal Rescue Klub (B.A.R.K.), co-chairman, Cameron, West Virginia (Appalachia) Clothing Drive; New York PTA Jenkins" Award winner for teaching ability and humanitarianism.

On her maternal heritage side, Rosalie is a descendant of Patrick McGunnigle who emigrated to the U.S. prior to 1812 and who settled in NYC on the site of the McAlpin Hotel. Later his descendants purchased over 100 acres on what is now Grumman Aircraft, the family home is now the Linden Tree Restaurant. One ancestor lost an eye in the Battle of the Wilderness in the Civil War. On her paternal side, she is descended from the Walsh's of Hicksville Road and the Hempstead Plains. (Thomas Walsh, farmer, was a private with the Oyster Bay contingent in the Civil War). She is also a great-granddaughter of Gerhard Neumann, the first enrolled school taxpayer of record in 1913 for the Central Park Public School. His daughter, Cecelia (Rosalie's grandmother) was in the class of 1900 in Central Park.

Her husband's people, the Niemczyks, owned the northern half of what is now Bethpage State Park, as well as, owning another farm on what is now Sylvia and Haypath Roads. - Information from "She's Who---That's Who" in the "Bethpage Tribune" December 8, 1983.

Rosalie passed away on December 31, 2019.