Jack Raybin, center, on his 100th birthday receives a proclamation from New York State Assemblyman Steve Englebright while his wife, Anne Raybin, looks on. Photo by Maria Hoffman
Not many can say a state legislator attended their birthday party, but that’s exactly what happened when Jack Raybin, a 52-year Setauket resident, celebrated his 100th birthday.
Jack Raybin checks out a gift from his grandchildren a few days after this 100th birthday. Photo by Rita J. Egan
New York State Assemblyman Steve Englebright (D-Setauket) stopped by Raybin’s party July 4 to present the centenarian with a proclamation. Englebright said it’s a practice of the assembly members to recognize those who distinguish themselves through unique gifts and generosity.
The assemblyman said when Raybin was a young man, he put aside his dreams to become a civil engineer to serve his country in the U.S. Army during World War II. After telling the party guests that the proclamation bears the seal of the State of New York in solid gold, he turned to Raybin to present the certificate and said, “You, sir, are solid gold.”
A few days after the party, sporting a Brooklyn Dodgers hat, the centenarian said he had a nice time at the party that featured baseball-themed decorations lining the driveway and a cake shaped like the former Ebbets Field stadium. Like many of his generation, Raybin was a fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers until the team moved from the borough to Los Angeles in 1957. He then went on to root for the New York Mets.
Born in the East New York section of Brooklyn July 4, 1919, he graduated from Erasmus Hall High School. While he originally studied civil engineering at City College uptown, Raybin said he wound up joining the Army during World War II. He was stationed on the Atlantic Ocean side of Panama. He said he volunteered to join the Army, and at the time there were openings in Fort Tilden and Fort Hamilton in New York, and he expected to serve for a year at either one of them. However, due to there being no volunteers for Panama, names were chosen randomly, and Raybin was selected to serve in that country.
“It was the best thing that happened to me,” he said.
Members of the armed services at Tilden and Hamilton eventually were sent to Europe to fight in World War II; however, he remained in Panama for four years. It was during this time that he met former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who was visiting the troops. He was a captain at the time, and Roosevelt had a question for him.
“Captain, which is your best mess hall?” Roosevelt said.
“That one,” he said, indicating a nearby hall.
“I took one look at her, and I guess I must have fallen in love.”
— Jack Raybin, about when he first met his wife
“Captain, they all should be the best,” she said.
When he returned from Panama, he went back to City College but then transferred to Baruch College, where he majored in business administration. After graduation, he got a job in the field working for a wholesale liquor company. After retiring at 65, he began working at his son-in-law’s company which deals with the laser industry until he was 96, helping with the books and the business side of the operation.
“I was in good health, so I kept working,” he said.
Raybin’s wife, Anne, said the couple moved to Setauket 52 years ago due to its proximity to the beach and the Long Island Rail Road. They raised their children Linda and Paul in the Three Village area.
The two met at Banner Lodge in Connecticut in 1947, and eight months later were married. The centenarian said he remembered she came to the lodge visiting a friend.
“I took one look at her, and I guess I must have fallen in love,” he said.
He said he also remembers taking her on the Ferris wheel where he put his arm around her in the hopes of making out with her.
His wife also remembers the encounter.
“He may be quiet, but he makes his moves,” Anne Raybin said.
When it comes to marital advice, Jack Raybin said it’s about give and take.
“You got to treat your partner as a partner,” he said.
Raybin has seen a lot of change in the world since he was growing up in Brooklyn. He said he remembers going to the store for his mother to pick up ice to keep food cold in an icebox and keeping items such as milk outside the window on a platform in the winter. The centenarian said he still calls a refrigerator an icebox. His family would also have to go to a store if they had a phone call, he said, as the neighborhood phone was in a nearby candy store. An employee would run to a person’s apartment to tell them they had a call, and then they would have to walk down to the store.
Raybin is a grandfather to five and great-grandfather to one, and he said he’s always willing to share his stories about the old days with his family.
“If they’re interested, they’ll ask me about it, and I’ll tell them,” he said.
Mankind walked on the moon, a few locals helped us get there
The Earth as seen by Apollo astronauts over the horizon of the moon. Photo from NASA
They named it Apollo. Though the moniker has become synonymous with human achievement, a scientific milestone, the merging of a collective national conscience, the Greek god Apollo was known for many things, but the moon was not one of them. If scientists had to choose, there was the Titan Selene, or perhaps Artemis or Hecate, all Greek gods with connection to the great, gray orb in the night’s sky.
Abe Silverstein, NASA’s director of Space Flight Programs, proposed the name, and he did so beyond the surface of using a well-known god of the pantheon. In myth, Apollo was the sky charioteer, dragging Helios, the Titan god of the sun, in an elliptical high over humanity’s head.
If anything was going to bring humanity to the moon, it would be Apollo.
Despite this, it wasn’t a myth that allowed man to take his first steps on the moon, it was humankind. Billions of dollars were spent by companies across the nation, working hand in hand with NASA to find a way to make it into space. Here on Long Island, the Bethpage-based Grumman Corporation worked to create the lunar module, the insect-looking pod that would be the first legs to test its footing on the moon’s surface.
Thousands worked on the lunar module, from engineers to scientists to accountants to everyone in between.
Half a century later some of these heroes of science, engineers and other staff, though some may have passed, are still around on the North Shore to continue their memories.
Pat Solan — Port Jefferson Station
By Kyle Barr
Pat Solan of Port Jefferson Station can still remember her late husband, Mike, back when the U.S. wanted nothing more than to put boots far in the sky, on the rotating disk of the moon.
Pat Solan holds a photo of her with husband Mike. Photo by Kyle Barr
Mike worked on the Apollo Lunar Module at Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation in Bethpage, where he was at the head of several projects including mock-ups of the pod and working on its landing gear. He can be seen in a movie presented by NASA as workers create a scale diorama of the surface of the moon, craters and all.
“The space program was important — people don’t realize it was a huge endeavor,” she said.
Pat met her husband in Maryland when she was only 21. Mike had worked with military aviation projects all over the country, but the couple originally thought they would end up moving to California. Instead, one of Mike’s friends invited him to come to Long Island to try an interview with Grumman. Needless to say, he got the job. The couple would live in Port Jefferson for two years before moving to Setauket.
Pat said her husband always had his eye on the sky. Aviation was his dream job, and she remembered how he was “thrilled to pieces” to step into the cockpit of a Grumman F-14 Tomcat.
Mike would be constantly working, so much that during those years of development on the module she would hardly see him at home.
A model of the lunar module owned by the Solan family. Photo from Rolin Tucker
“He was working double shifts and he was going in between Calverton and Bethpage,” she said. “I hardly saw him at all.”
But there were a few perks. Solan and her husband would see many astronauts as Grumman brought them in to test on the simulators. She met several of the early astronauts, but perhaps the most memorable of them was Russell “Rusty” Schweickart, all due to his quick wit and his outgoing personality compared to the stauncher, military-minded fellow astronauts. Schweickart would be pilot on the Apollo 9 mission, the third crewed space mission that would showcase the effectiveness of the lunar module, testing systems that would be critical toward the future moon landing.
She, along with Mike, would also go down to Cape Canaveral, Florida, and there she was allowed to walk in the silo. Standing underneath the massive girders, it was perhaps the most impressive thing she has ever seen in her life.
“It was absolutely mind-boggling — it was very impressive,” she said. “I can still remember that. I was stricken.”
On the day of the landing, July 20, 1969, Pat was hosting a party to watch the dramatic occasion at her home, then in Setauket. It could have barely been a more auspicious day, as she had just given birth to her daughter Rolin July 8.
Eventually, Mike would have multiple strokes through the late 1970s and ’80s, and the stress of it would cause him to retire in 1994. He died a few years later.
“He really felt he was not capable of doing presentations to the government anymore,” she said.
Mike Solan. Photo from Pat Solan
But being so close to the work tied to getting man into space has left an impression on her. Herself being an artist, having sold paintings, both landscapes and impressionistic, along with photography and felt sculptures, the effort of the people who put a human on the moon showed her the extent of human and American achievement.
“It was a time of such cooperation — I think it’s sad we don’t see that now,” she said.
Despite current events, she said she still believes the U.S. can achieve great things, though it will take a concerted effort.
“People have to move outside their own persona,” she added. “People are too wrapped up, everything is centered on oneself instead of a bigger picture, the whole.”
Joseph Marino — Northport
By Donna Deedy
Fifty years ago, on July 20, 1969, man walked on the surface of the moon.
Joseph Marino in front of the LM replica at the Cradle of Aviation Museum. Photo from Marino
Northport resident Joseph Marino spent 10 years on the Apollo mission as a Grumman systems engineer, involved from the very beginning of the project in 1962 to the last landing on the moon. He still finds the achievement remarkable.
“It was the most exciting program — the peak of my career — no question,” he said. “I couldn’t have been more pleased with the results of such a successful project.”
Marino oversaw the design of the systems for the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), as it was originally known, and managed 300 engineers and also psychologists who were needed to work out the man/machine interface that dictated equipment design, such as visual display systems the crew relied upon during precarious moments of landing and docking.
An error in timing, particularly during landing, he said, could be disastrous.
“Astronauts are the coolest characters capable of handling any situation imaginable,” Marino said. “It’s crucial for the crew to know when you make contact with the surface, so they know when to shut off the engine.”
The team ultimately created an alert system with red flashing lights wired to 3- to 4-foot-long probes positioned on the module’s landing gear.
The most dramatic, awe-inspiring moment of all during the Apollo missions, Marino said, was when the astronauts witnessed the Earth rising above the horizon of the moon’s cratered landscape. The event was memorialized in what has become an iconic photo that most people today have seen. Marino cherishes that shot.
NASA’s moon mission has been an endless source of inspiration for mankind. In fact, people can thank the space program for popularizing inventions big and little. Computers, very primitive versions of what are popular today, were first used by NASA. Velcro, Marino said, was also invented during the Apollo program and later became broadly popular.
Joseph Marino in front of the LM replica at the Cradle of Aviation Museum. Photo from Marino
Looking back, now that 50 years have passed, Marino said it’s disturbing to him that there’s been such a wide gap in time since the last moon landing and today.
He recently spoke to his granddaughter’s high school class and told them, “Not only did man walk on the surface of the moon before you were born, likely it occurred before your parents were born.”
The bond Marino has developed with his aerospace colleagues has lasted a lifetime.Each month, he still meets with a dozen co-workers for lunch at the Old Dock Inn in Kings Park.
For the 50th anniversary, Marino says that he’s been enjoying the special programming on PBS. He recommends its three-part series called “Chasing the Moon.”
Frank Rizzo — Melville
By Rita J. Egan
For Frank Rizzo, his experience of working on the Apollo program while a Grumman employee was more about dollars and cents.
Grumman workers at Plant 5 Clean Room watching Apollo 11 landing
Rizzo, 85, was with the aerospace engineering company for 33 years. While he retired as a vice president, in the years leading up to the moon landing, he was an accounting manager with the Grumman lunar module program. The Melville resident said it was an exciting time at Grumman.
Work, he said, began on the project a few years before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took the first steps on the moon. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration established a work package budgeting system with Grumman, and Rizzo, who lived in Dix Hills at the time, said he was responsible for giving the team in the Houston space center the monthly estimate to complete the actual expenditures from an external point of view and also determine profit and loss from an internal point of view.
Rizzo and his co-workers traveled to Houston frequently to review the program with NASA to give the current status from the financial, engineering and manufacturing viewpoints, though sometimes the meetings took place on Long Island. The former accounting manager said many times stand-up meetings were held due to the theory that people become too comfortable when they sit, and stand-up meetings enable for more to get done in less time.
Rizzo said he remembers the original contract, signed in the latter part of 1962, to be valued around $415 million at first. He likened the project to building a house, where it evolves over the years. Revisions come along, and just like one might choose to move a door or window, the budget would need to change regularly.
“When they discovered something from an engineering viewpoint, they had to change the manufacturing scope and materials,” he said.
Rizzo said an example of a significant change was when Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger B. Chaffee were killed in a cabin fire during a launch rehearsal test in 1967. The trio would have been the first crew to take part in the first low Earth orbital test. Due to the horrific incident, a change was made to ensure all material within the lunar module was fireproof.
“That was a major change,” he said. “That entitled us to additional funds to put new materials in it. So those things happened quite frequently — a change to the contract.”
When all was said and done, Rizzo said the contract value between NASA and Grumman totaled more than $2 billion.
Grumman workers at Plant 5 Clean Room watching Apollo 11 landing. Photo from Cradle of Aviation Museum
During the project, Rizzo said many members of the press would come to visit the Grumman office, including Walter Cronkite who anchored “CBS Evening News” at the time.
“Here was a little place on Long Island being responsible for the actual vehicle that landed on the moon,” he said.
Since the moon landing, Rizzo said seeing similar NASA activities like the Space Shuttle program haven’t been as exciting as the Apollo program.
“A lot of people said it was a waste of money, but that money was spent here for jobs, and many of the things that we got out of the research and development, like cellphones or GPS, and so forth, the basic research and development came out of that NASA program back in the ’60s and ’70s,” he said.
The Setauket Neighborhood House when it was known as the Lakeside House
By Beverly C. Tyler
While the wooden shipbuilding era was ending on Long Island and in the Three Village area in the 1870s, the Long Island Railroad was completing the North Shore line. The coming of the railroad made it possible for people and products to travel quickly overland.
Until the railroad came, most travel and commerce to and from Long Island ports was conducted by ship. As the railroad became more efficient and reliable, tourism began to increase, especially during the summer months. Hotels, tourist homes and summer cottages opened in Stony Brook and Setauket, as they did throughout Long Island, to accommodate the influx of visitors.
Beverly Swift and Edith Griffin Tyler at West Meadow Beach around 1912
By 1902, there were six hotels or tourist homes in Stony Brook and ten in Setauket-East Setauket that offered weekly rates. In Stony Brook, the Pine View House run by Israel Hawkins was advertised as a family recreation summer boarding house with accommodations for 25 guests. Guests at the Pine View had the use of a beach house at West Meadow Beach.
In East Setauket, Shore Acres was a large boarding house overlooking Setauket Harbor. Shore Acres was run by Mr. and Mrs. William D. Oaks and had 30 rooms and one bathroom with a washbasin in each room. “In the large dining room on Sundays, the meal was usually chicken, slaughtered on Saturday evening, fresh garden vegetables and homemade ice cream.” (Long Island Museum 1981 exhibit Summer at the Shore). Boating and bathing were popular activities during these summers, and Shore Acres had docks and boats for the use of guests.
In Setauket, the Lakeside House, now the Setauket Neighborhood House, had accommodations for 25 guests at $6 to $8 per week. The Lakeside House was run by my grandfather Captain Beverly Swift Tyler. In 1879, he was master and 3/8 owner of the Willow Harp. She was a coastal schooner and carried coal from New Jersey to East Setauket. Beginning about the turn of the century Captain Tyler, who then spent much of his time running the Lakeside House and general store, would take guests on sailing outings on his catboat Madeline, which was anchored in Setauket Harbor.
The catboat Setauket rigged with a canopy and engine to take Lakeside House guests on excursions.
After he married my grandmother Edith Griffin in 1912, who first came to Setauket to stay a week at the Lakeside House with her sister Carolyn, she became the Lakeside hostess and manager of the kitchen and boarding house staff. Lucy Hart Keyes, born 1900, commented that she worked at the Lakeside house as a young girl and that Mrs. Tyler was “an easy person to work for.”
In 1906, my grandfather built the catboat Setauket in an area behind the Lakeside House. The Setauket was the second boat he built — the first being the Madeline — which, according to Roger Tyler, Captain Tyler’s nephew, “was built with the comments and help of friends and neighbors whose advice he took and later regretted. When the Setauket was being built and comments were again offered, Captain Tyler this time pointed out that the Madeline was their community boat and that he was building the Setauket by himself.”
Sailboats and the harbors and inlets of the Three Village area were part of the attractiveness of the community at the turn of the century. Captain Tyler used the Setauket to take guests on excursions on the Sound and around Setauket and Port Jefferson harbors. The Setauket was also built to race in local competitions in Port Jefferson Harbor. When the Setauket was built, Captain Tyler sold the Madeline, which was a fairly good racing catboat. Roger Tyler said that the Setauket was raced in Port Jefferson and was a consistent winner against all competition including the Madeline. Tyler commented that, “it got to be so that they wouldn’t tell Bev when a race was to be run and a few times he found out about them only just an hour or so before the race, but raced and won anyway.”
Beverly C. Tyler is Three Village Historical Society historian and author of books available from the society at 93 North Country Road, Setauket. For more information, call 631-751-3730 or visit www.tvhs.org.
May Garwin. Photo from Suffolk County Police Department
Suffolk County Police 6th Squad detectives are seeking the public’s help to locate an East Setauket woman, May Garwin, who was reported missing last week.
A relative of Garwin reported her missing to police May 26. The relative said she last saw the missing person April 4 at Garwin’s home, located at 5 Hansom Lane. Garwin is 36 years old, 5 feet 5 inches tall, approximately 130 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. She has no previously reported mental or physical health issues.
Garwin’s vehicle was impounded by the New York Police Department on May 6 after it was parked illegally on Schermerhorn Street in Brooklyn.
Detectives are asking anyone with information on Garwin’s location to call 911 or the 6th Squad at 631-854-8652.
The home of Capt. Joseph Swift and Capt. Charles B. Tyler families, circa 1900. Tyler died in 1899; his wife, Eliza, died in 1924. The house and property now belong to the Three Village Community Trust. Photo from Beverly C. Tyler
By Beverly C. Tyler
The date was Saturday, Feb. 19, 1848. The day began cold and clear but pleasant with no wind and a frost on the ground early. The weather had been about the same for the week before. (From the diary of Henry Hudson, 1791-1877.)
In the family room of a large farmhouse, two sisters — Eliza, age 15, and Mary, age 14, the eldest children of Capt. Joseph Swift and his wife, Amelia — were sitting at a table in front of the fireplace. Their five younger siblings — Cynthia, 11, William, 8, Ellen, 6, George, 4, and Harriet, 2 — were sitting closer to the warmth from the fireplace entertaining each other with games and storybooks. Eliza, Mary and their mother had been up just before dawn, as they were every day on their small six-acre farm, tending the animals and preparing breakfast. Their father had been away for a time sailing his cargo schooner along the Atlantic Coast. With the morning chores completed, Eliza and Mary placed their small portable writing desk on the table and prepared to write a letter to their aunt and uncle in New York City.
A recently discovered letter, on light blue paper, written in ink now faded to a light brown, was discovered in Tyler family papers. Both Mary and Eliza wrote the letter. Mary writing to their aunt Mary Bacon Stoney and then Eliza continuing with her own writing to their Uncle Henry Stoney. Mary wrote, “As I have a few moments I will devote it to the pleasure of writing to you although I have some melancholy news to write. The family are all well with the exceptions of Ellen who has been sick with the scarlet rash but is now much recovered. We have nothing from father since Aunt Mary left … ”
Mary continued the letter with details about the valentines the two girls received and how easy it was to figure out who sent them. Then she told her aunt the news. “Setauket is quite sickly. In less than ten days there have been five deaths. Hannah Howell, the young girl who went to school with Eliza died on Saturday with the Typhus fever. Mrs. Archibald Jayne died on Monday with the quincy after an illness of only ten days … Mr. Archibald died on Wednesday after being sick only three days with the pleurisy … Their funerals [at Setauket’s Caroline Church] were very large. Uncle William [Bacon] supposed there were 400 people there and more than 50 carriages and wagons. A great many aged people said they never saw such a sight before in a country place. Isaac Brewster died on Thursday morning with the consumption … Solomon Smith died about a week ago … Eliza will finish this sheet. Please give my love to grandmother [Cynthia Halsey Bacon], Uncle Henry and Ellen Fulton. Your affectionate niece Mary Swift.”
Henry Hudson, in his diary for 1848 also mentioned the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Archibald Jayne. “Monday Feb 28th 1848 … I hear yesterday that Archibald Jayne and wife both of them were buried in a day — Isaac Brewster too … I have fifteen scholars …” At the time Hudson, who lived in Setauket, was teaching school in Wading River, having walked there to begin the quarter.
Eliza continued the letter writing to her uncle, telling more about one of the valentines she received and the fact that her Aunt Eliza, possibly her father’s sister, was living with them and had a room upstairs. As there were just three bedrooms upstairs for at least two adults and seven children, it was quite different from sleeping arrangements for most families today. Eliza continued her letter with details on more family members, two weddings and the arrival back home of “Mr. Mills’s son,” who had been with Capt. Swift.
Eliza, my great-grandmother, married Capt. Charles B. Tyler in January 1851, at the age of 18. The couple joined the Swift household, and sometime before Capt. Swift died in 1860 at the age of 48, they purchased the home and farm. By 1870, my widowed great-great-grandmother Amelia Bacon Swift was living in East Setauket with her youngest son Joseph, age 24.
Mary, my great-grandaunt, married Capt. Benjamin Jones before March 19, 1858, and voyaged with him to China and Japan in the bark Mary and Louisa, built by her uncle William Bacon in his shipyard in East Setauket. They left New York’s South Street Seaport in September 1858. Mary’s letters home to her sister Eliza and her sister-in-law Ellen Jones Jayne are a wonderful glimpse into her life at sea and in China and Japan. They arrived back in New York in September 1861. Mary, by then seriously ill with consumption, died in October 1861 at the age of 26. She is buried in the Setauket Presbyterian Cemetery.
Beverly C. Tyler is Three Village Historical Society historian and author of books available from the society at 93 North Country Road, Setauket. For more information, call 631-751-3730 or visit www.tvhs.org.
Suffolk County police arrested six people March 30 for selling alcohol to minors at businesses located within Brookhaven Town in the 6th Precinct.
Police said they conducted several stings in response to community complaints, and 6th Precinct Crime Section officers conducted an investigation into the sale of alcohol to minors during which 17 businesses were checked for compliance with the law.
The following people were arrested and charged with unlawfully dealing with a minor:
German Estevez-Rodriguez, 40, of East Setauket, employed at Upper Main Street Deli, located at 1600 Main Street in Port Jefferson
Joseph Ragan, 18, of Coram, employed at Speedway Gas Station, located at 1445 Route 112 in Port Jefferson Station
Isaiah Tyler, 19, of Coram, employed at Speedway Gas Station located at 1956 Route 112 in Coram
Nurettin Keski, 45, of Brentwood, employed by Valero Gas Station,located at 1274 Middle Country Road in Selden
Buenaventura Benitez, 45, of Smithtown, employed at NY Food & Drinks, Inc. located at 2505 Middle Country Road in Centereach
Ervin Rhames, 21, of East Patchogue, employed at Speedway Gas Station, located at 501 Route 112, Port Jefferson Station
Eleven establishments within the 6th Precinct complied and refused to sell alcohol to minors.
All six people arrested were issued field appearance tickets and are scheduled to appear at first district court in Central Islip May 28.
Photo from Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office
An East Setauket man faces a multicount indictment for allegedly receiving more than $400,000 through insurance fraud.
On Feb. 28, Suffolk County District Attorney Tim Sini’s (D) office announced the unsealing of a 70-count indictment against former health care worker Joseph Basile, 50. It is alleged he fraudulently received more than $400,000 through a health insurance fraud scheme where he would file claims for unperformed procedures and list a former employer, a colorectal surgeon, on the forms.
“This was an act of pure greed,” Sini said. “He used his knowledge of the health care insurance system to illegally pocket hundreds of thousands of dollars, money that would have otherwise been used to care for people who were sick and in need.”
Basile was charged with insurance fraud in the first degree, three counts of health care fraud in the second degree, two counts of grand larceny in the second degree, health care fraud in the third degree, grand larceny in the third degree, scheme to defraud in the first degree and 60 counts of criminal possession of a forged instrument in the second degree.
Basile was employed as an office manager for a private health care practice by a colorectal surgeon in Port Jefferson before the practice closed in 2013, according to the DA’s office. From January 2014 through July 2016, Basile allegedly fraudulently filed insurance claims for medical procedures, including colorectal surgeries, to Empire BlueCross BlueShield in excess of $3.8 million on behalf of himself and others, listing his former employer as the provider. The medical procedures had not been performed.
Basile then allegedly forged the signature of his former employer and deposited the checks into his own account. The more than $400,000 received was paid by both the insurance company and John T. Mather Hospital.
The former health care worker also allegedly filed fraudulent insurance claims on behalf of another individual whose health care is provided through Teamsters Local 1205’s welfare fund, according to Sini’s office. Basile allegedly stole more than $3,000 from the fund by filing false health care insurance claims.
Basile was released on $5,000 bond and is due back in court March 12. If convicted of the top count, he faces a maximum sentence of eight and one-third to 25 years in prison.
He is being represented by Legal Aid of Suffolk County attorney Kathleen Evers who could not be reached for comment.
Mary Speers says goodbye to a congregant of Setauket Presbyterian Church. Photo from Facebook
As the congregants of Setauket Presbyterian Church look to the future, one pastor has her mind on retirement.
The Rev. Mary Speers, 65, who pastored at the church for nearly six years, said her last sermon in Setauket Nov. 30. Temporarily taking over the role as interim pastor is Kate Jones Calone who is known for her work with the Open Door Exchange, an outreach program of the church created to collect furniture to distribute to those in need.
After members of Setauket Presbyterian conducted its most recent mission study and put together a five-year plan, Speers started asking herself if she wanted to work another five years, considering she was thinking of retiring in May when she turns 66.
The Rev. Mary Speers, left holding dog, at a past Christmas Eve Manger Service at Setauket Presbyterian Church. Photo from Mary Speers
The reverend said she was already researching houses in Baltimore. Speers said she wished to move there due to a lot of social justice work needing to be done in the city, along with her love for small-city life. The pastor said if she bought a home before she retired, she could rent it out.
When she decided it would be best for Setauket Presbyterian church members to find someone who would be there for the long haul, she called the Presbytery office in Maryland to see if there were any churches looking for an interim pastor. She said soon after her request, she received a call that congregants of a church in the city were looking for someone. Around the same time, her real estate agent found a home for her.
She said the church members of Setauket Presbyterian understood her need to move as soon as possible and for the small Maryland church’s need for a pastor after theirs left in July 2018.
“They said, ‘You know what, why don’t you let them have a pastor for Advent,’” she said. “‘We’ll be fine.’ That was really sweet of them.”
Speers said she’ll miss pastoring at Setauket Presbyterian Church, where she described the congregants as “putting feet on faith.”
“The congregation is absolutely wonderful,” she said. “They are so involved in the running of the place.”
The pastor said after working and living in Setauket since February of 2013, in addition to the church members, she will miss her time in the Three Village area where she kayaked and picked beach plums at West Meadow Beach, with which she made jam.
Debra Dwyer, an elder with the church, said she switched churches three years ago and credits Speers with her becoming a member of Setauket Presbyterian. She described the pastor as strong and passionate.
Dwyer said she and one of her daughters Emily visited the church on one Youth Mission Sunday during which young church members reported about their recent mission trip to Washington, D.C., to work with the homeless. Based on that visit, Dwyer and her daughter came back one day when Speers was preaching.
“She preached on social issues,” the church elder said. “She applied the bible and scripture in a way that I was so impressed. What she was able to do was get a message out that was truly Christian and that was truly socially just in a way that was not controversial so that everyone could hear it.”
While Dwyer will miss Speers, she said she admires Jones Calone for her peace and justice missions and looks forward to her pastoring.
“For us, this is just a family member getting promoted,” she said.
Speers said she knows Jones Calone will do great in her role as interim pastor because she knows the church’s dynamics.
“She has a great head on her shoulder,” she said. “She’s very pastoral, but she also has excellent boundaries.”
The members of Setauket Presyterian Church welcomed interim pastor Kate Jones Calone with a cake. Photo by Sandy Bond
Jones Calone, 44, who is a wife and mother of three children ranging in age from 7 to 13, has been involved in the church since 2011 when she started as an assistant pastor. She was in the role for nearly five years, and during that time, launched and became the director of Open Door Exchange.
“I’m incredibly so grateful and excited to be serving Setauket Presbyterian Church in this point in the life of the congregation,” she said.
During this transitional time, she said she is excited to help the congregants, whom she described as loving and dedicated, with their plans, which include figuring out how to help people connect with their faith in new ways. She said the church will continue its mission to learn how they can be good stewards of the funds they receive.
In addition to running the Open Door Exchange, every Wednesday the church members volunteer at Welcome Friends Soup Kitchen in Port Jefferson, which serves hot, homemade meals with volunteers from several area churches.
Jones Calone, who officially became interim pastor Jan. 9, said Speers will be missed, and she always appreciated her support when Open Door Exchange was initiated.
“Mary brought a real creativity in her leadership in a lot of different ways, including worship, and I always appreciated that,” Jones Calone said. “I also think about how I really appreciated when we came to her and said, ‘We have this idea for starting this new outreach program.’ She never hesitated and said, ‘Let’s do it. Let’s figure out a way to make this happen, what kind of support do you need.’”
The former home of Brookhaven Cat Hospital is being renovated after an Oct. 7 fire destroyed the interior. Photo by Rita J. Egan
Three months after a fire engulfed one of the buildings that makes up the Setauket Commons former tenants are embarking on new paths.
Business were forced to close after a fire ripped through 60 Route 25A in Setauket, the night of Oct. 7. The fire took more than two hours to control, according to Setauket Fire Department, leaving smoke and water damage in its wake.
Veterinarian Dr. Anthony Nanton, owner of Brookhaven Cat Hospital, has been working at Paumanok Veterinary Hospital in Patchogue since the end of November. The Stony Brook resident said when he arrived on the scene Oct. 7 smoke was pouring out of the building. It’s still difficult for him to talk about that night.
“It was quite traumatic,” he said.
Nanton said three resident cats died in the fire from what appeared to be smoke inhalation. The animal hospital was the felines’ home since 2003 when it was located in Coram.
“They were like my children,” the veterinarian said.
While Nanton will now work out of Patchogue, Anne McLaughlin, president of Hayes Physical Therapy, said she and her staff will remain in Setauket. The business has operated out of the Setauket Commons since 2004 and McLaughlin bought the company in 2009.
Since the fire, McLaughlin has made house calls when she can and referred patients to her colleagues in the surrounding area.
McLaughlin said she signed a new lease Jan. 11, and Hayes Physical Therapy will be moving to the same shopping center as Mario’s Italian Restaurant — Heritage Corners East — in the storefront of the former music store. She is hoping to reopen within the next couple of weeks.
“There was no question that I was going to stay in the Three Village area,” she said. “It was just a matter of finding a suitable location.”
The employees of Advanced Research Media, which had an office in the building for 2 1/2 years, are now working remotely from their homes, according to the company’s vice president Elyse Blechman. The owners of Healing Massage could not be reached by this publication’s press time.
Dr. Edmunde Stewart had a passion for riding horses. Photo Courtesy of the Steart family
By Vicky Stewart
Dr. Edmunde Andrew Cameron Stewart, 80, died Dec. 6 in St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson, surrounded by the love of his family. Stewart had been fighting pneumonia. For the past several years, after being diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, his lungs were compromised.
The Stewart family is most known for living on Old Field Road for many years, where he and his wife, Norma, raised their three children. Stewart was an orthopedic surgeon working at St. Charles Hospital and Mather Hospital, serving as the chief of orthopedics at Mather, for many years, and as a past president of the medical staff at both St. Charles and Mather. He had a private practice on Elm Street in Port Jefferson.
Stewart was also an exceptional equestrian and had a passion for foxhunting. He was the master of the Smithtown Hunt Club and a president of the Smithtown Hunt Horse Show. He is remembered affectionately by fellow foxhunters as “Doc” as he would often help injured riders, during a foxhunt. For many years, he moderated the hunt breakfast, to benefit the museums at Stony Brook. He also served three terms as a trustee for the Village of Old Field.
Although medicine and horses were his passions, his greatest love was his family. Right until the end, with family by his side, he was letting them know how much he loved them.
His legacy will live on through his loving family, who adored him. He leaves behind his wife of 56 years, Norma; his son Greg; daughters Victoria and Gillian; and son-in-law Juan. He was a loving grandpa to his four grandchildren, Olivia, Cameron, Benjamin and Emilia, all who affectionately called him “Deda.”
Stewart was a native of Dundee, Scotland. He was predeceased by his father Andrew Stewart, mother Winifred Byrd Lennox and sister Winifred Lennox Govan.
Stewart entered St. Andrew’s University Medical School in Scotland at the age of 17. Upon graduation in 1961, he did two specialty residences in Scotland: internal medicine and orthopedics. In 1962-63, he taught anatomy at St. Andrew’s University. He came to the United States in 1963 and served his residency in orthopedics at Nassau Hospital, Meadowbrook Hospital and here at St. Charles. He became a fellow of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons in 1971, and the following year he received his fellow of American College of Surgeons. He also served in the Army Reserve, as a reserve commissioned officerfor the United States Army.
The doctor was a man of many talents. His children remember him playing the trumpet and the piano. Prior to entering medical school, he had spent many years on the stage, as a member of the Dundee Repertory Theatre, with starring roles in productions of “Oliver Twist” and “Great Expectations,” to name a few. At the same time, although busy on the stage and with his studies, Stewart managed to find some time to participate in one of his favorite sports. For two years, he was the junior champion of the West End Lawn Tennis Club, a prominent private tennis club in his native Dundee.
While at St. Andrews, Stewart was a member of the university’s fencing team, touring England, Ireland and Scotland and in the process obtaining his “full blue” for the university.
He was laid to rest Dec. 10 at the Caroline Church of Brookhaven in Setauket, on a beautiful sunny day, with a bagpiper playing “Amazing Grace,” in the distance.
“Every man dies, not every man lives” is a quote he was fond of, by William Wallace, a freedom fighter from Scotland near the end of the 13th century. This quote is a great testament to the fact that Stewart truly lived and lived with passion, until the very end. His fighting spirit and love for life will live on in all who knew him.
Prev
