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Nancy J. Slonus
PORTSMOUTH - Funeral services for Mrs. Nancy J. (Irwin) Slonus, 89, of 928 South St., were held from the J. Verne Wood Funeral Home-Buckminster Chapel on Friday, with graveside services at Calvary Cemetery. The Rev. Agapit H. Jean Jr., pastor of St. James Church in Portsmouth, officiated.
Freda A. Schultze, wife of frankfurt baron, dead at 88
PORTSMOUTH - Freda A. Schultze, 88, of 293 Rockland St., died Friday, April 14, 2000, at York Hospital, after a hard fall on Tuesday, April 11.
Born Freda Ann Peschel on July 26, 1911, in New Haven, Conn., she was the daughter of German immigrants, three of whose older children had been born in Germany. As an infant, she suffered from lactose intolerance and could take no milk of any kind. Her mother was barely able to keep her alive by feeding her a slurry formula based on oatmeal and removing her daily from the stifling tenement where her family lived to a cool park nearby. Her mother, Ida Peschel, was said to have genuinely had a heart of gold. Freda's genes for survival rose straight to the top and she was ready to face all life had to offer. Whether it was triumph or adversity, she was ready to rock!
Raised poor, she had to pick up coal along the railroad tracks to help keep her family warm. Her family could only afford one dress each for Freda and her four sisters, and the one bicycle in the family went to the oldest of her three brothers, so she never learned to ride. She breezed through school, skipping two grades along the way.
In the late 1920s, Freda's family moved to Boston, where her father, Carl Peschel, began a fledgling business producing meat products for local eateries and stores. He was known as the best sausage-maker in Boston. Freda quit her job at a stock brokerage firm and went to work with her father. At a time when few women drove, Freda began selling her father's products around Boston in a Model A truck. It was a case of family survival, as she often told her sons and grandchildren, "If you didn't work, you didn't eat." Freda proved to be such a good saleswoman that her father rewarded her with a steamship trip to California. At the age of 19, she sailed unaccompanied through the Panama Canal and on to San Francisco, then returned home by train, through Reno, Nev.
It was while she worked delivering for her father that she caught the eye of the man who would be her husband for 55 years. Carl W. Schultze was the hard-working son of immigrant German and Irish parents who shared Freda's fierce ambition to succeed. On cold winter nights they would ride, singing, in Carl's Model A Roadster with the top down as they forged a plan and dreamed of starting their own business: the Schultze Meat Packing Co. Together they discovered Portsmouth in the early 1930s. Freda's father shared with his handsome new son-in-law the formula for the wonderful frankfurts that so many have enjoyed over the years.
Adversity came their way, whether it was lack of money to pay the rent at their new establishment (the building now housing the Dolphin Striker restaurant), or fires repeatedly destroying their uninsured business. Freda even gave birth to her first son with her leg in a cast. She had slipped on a snowy sidewalk in front of the Colonial Theatre in Market Square after seeing "Mutiny on the Bounty" with her husband and her brother, breaking her leg in her eighth month of pregnancy!
Through good times and bad, she survived with a love for life and family along with a keen ability to handle money, perhaps due to a childhood with absolutely none to spare.
Her husband became a baron and executive in the meat industry as the co-founder and owner of New Hampshire Provision Co. in Portsmouth. Freda found her outlet in harness racing. She loved the action of owning racehorses, racing them and wagering on them. She was one of the few who could win at a losing game. She would say, "The key is not to win every race, but to win more than you lose." She made it her policy to never loan or borrow money at the track.
Freda more than once won tickets at Rockingham Park in New Hampshire, picking the winners of six consecutive races, one ticket paying more than $20,000. She won a raffle at Suffolk Downs in Boston for a brand new luxury car. She wintered for many years with her husband in Pompano Beach, Fla., attending Pompano's Park Race Track every night and sending her vacationing grandchildren to Disney World with her winnings. Once she tripped on her way to the Winners' Circle at Foxboro Raceway in Massachusetts after one of her horses won. She stumbled, 'tumblesaulted,' and popped up right in the circle to have her picture taken. She once had a pin let go and her pants dropped to the floor in the clubhouse at Pompano Park. She pulled her pants up "faster than the eye could see," and laughed about it for years.
When one of her horses would win at Yonkers Raceway in New York City, she would treat everyone to a hot fudge sundae. At Rosecroft Raceway near Washington, D.C., as well as Richelieu Park in Montreal, she picked all 12 race winners one night. She met Madonna in the elevator at the Sheraton Meadowlands in New Jersey. Freda was going to the track; Madonna was going to perform in Giants Stadium. As an 82-year-old widow, she flew alone to Los Angeles to join her son who owned, trained and raced atop a 3-year-old colt in a quarter-million dollar race. While there, she stayed at Huntington Beach (Surf City USA) for two weeks with her son and grandchildren, attending the races at Los Alamitos every night.
Freda attended hundreds of races with her own horses racing, and tens of thousands of other races throughout her 50-year career at the track. Imagine: All of this resulted from her first close encounter with horse racing in 1948 at the Rochester Fair in New Hampshire. She hobnobbed with world-famous trainers and drivers, horse owners and millionaires, and all the while she was the best friend of her cleaning lady, Myrt. She savored every hour of every minute with generosity and the human touch. She gave away most of her winnings all her life to others who were more in need in order to keep challenging herself. She staked many of the people she loved to house purchases, cars, businesses and college educations.
Through it all, she was most proud of her "four big, handsome sons," Carl, Donald, Frederick and Robert, and her 15 grandchildren (including a repertory theater manager, a doctor, a lawyer, a pilot, an actress, a Hollywood executive, a military leader, business owners and college graduates _ all successful in their own right) and six great-grandchildren. She was the glue who put the family together and held it together with her advice, encouragement and help. "You get what you put in, and people get what they deserve."
Toward the end of her life, she lived in her own home with one of her granddaughters who loved her very much, and was visited every day by at least one of her sons, their wives, or their children. As one of her attending physicians said, "What a gift to give your grandmother _ to enable her to stay in her own home. How lucky she was!"
Of Freda Schultze, one could say that she hung tough, with some dementia for her last year or two. She won more than she lost, and she was a genuine winner, not only at the track, but also at the game of life. On April 9, she went out to breakfast with family at a local restaurant, and then for a ride along the New Hampshire Seacoast she dearly loved. Her quality life ended with dignity and grace, and without pain, thanks to a caring staff at York Hospital. We celebrate and honor her life.
Donald S. Cullinane
LITTLE DEER ISLE, Maine - Donald S. Cullinane, 76, died Friday, April 14, 2000, at a Blue Hill hospital.
Born Oct. 6, 1923, in Lowell, Mass., he was the son of Michael and Pansy (Sawyer) Cullinane.
He was a veteran of World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars.
After his retirement from the Air Force, he and his wife, Connie, moved to Portsmouth, where he began a 30-year employment at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. After retiring from the shipyard, he and his wife stayed in Portsmouth for a few years until moving to Little Deer Isle, Maine, in 1998.
He was a former communicant of St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church, Portsmouth, and a communicant of St. Mary's Star of the Sea Catholic Church, Stonington, Maine.
He was a member of the Knights of Columbus Veterans of Foreign Wars, both in Portsmouth, and the Deer Isle Grange No. 296 in Deer Isle.
Survivors include his wife of 43 years, Connie Cornelia (Billings) Cullinane of Little Deer Isle, Maine; two sons, Michael, of Keene, N.H., and Thomas, of Portsmouth; special brothers-in-law, Hubert Billings and his wife, Carol, Neville Hardy and his wife, Darlene, all of Deer Isle; a special sister-in-law, Caroline Stevens of Brooksville, Maine; a special niece, Marilyn Quinn of Massachusetts, and a special nephew, Kenneth Byan of Chelmsford, Mass.; and several nieces, nephews and cousins.
He was predeceased by eight brothers and sisters.
Donald C. Wark EXETER - Donald Craig Wark, 96, died Thursday, April 13, 2000.
Born Oct. 5, 1903, in Englewood, N.J., he was the son of David A. Wark and Lydia Kohler Wark.
For 40 years, he worked for Standard Oil of New Jersey, retiring in 1961.
He spent years in the military during World War II.
He was an active congregational layman, served on the board of the Boston City Missionary Society, was president of the Council of Churches in Lexington, Mass., and did volunteer work with terminal patients at Long Island Hospital, Boston, Mass.
After moving to Rye Beach, N.H., in 1968, he was on the Board of Adjustment and co-authored the Rye Beach zoning ordinance; was president of the Civic Association of Rye; and was an active member and Paul Harris Fellow of Portsmouth Rotary and a Mason for 79 years. He and his wife moved to Riverwoods of Exeter in 1994.
He was married to Mildred Pattee for 34 years when she passed away in 1961. They had one son, Craig Wark Jr. of Stratham. He also is survived by three grandchildren, Deborah Post of Middletown, R.I., David Wark of Phoenix, Ariz., and Pamela Perry of Londonderry, N.H.; and three great-grandchildren, Kelsey, Ian and Jack Perry.
He leaves a wife of 37 years, Louretta Feldkamp Wark, and one stepson, David Feldkamp of Rocklin, Calif.
Joan C. Collins
ARLINGTON, Texas - Joan C. Collins, 66, died suddenly Friday, April 14, 2000, at her home.
Born May 24, 1933, in Concord, N.H., she was the daughter of Theodore and Edith (Parker) Clough. Since 1968, she had resided in Dallas and Arlington, Texas. She had formerly resided in Hampton.
A 1950 graduate of Hampton Academy, she attended and graduated from the University of New Hampshire, Class of 1954.
She began her working career as an airline stewardess with Northeast Airlines.
In 1957, she married Robert Collins, with whom she shared 43 years of marriage.
In addition to her husband, survivors include one son, Dr. Brian Collins and his wife, Anne, of Dallas; her sisters, Betty Walters of North Haverhill, N.H., Patricia Bartlett and her husband, Clinton, of Newport, N.H.; and Shirlene Tremblay and her husband, Wilfred, of Newport, N.H.; and one grandson, Andy Collins; and many other loving family members and friends.
Marion W. Goucher
KITTERY - Marion Wood Goucher, 88, of 21 Manson Ave., died Thursday, April 13, 2000, at York Hospital.
She was born Jan. 20, 1912, in Rhode Island.
She was a social worker and active in animal rights organizations.
Survivors include one brother, William Wood of North Smithfield, R.I.
Mary J. Regan
PORTSMOUTH - Mary J. Regan, 97, of 216 Bartlett St., died Friday, April 14, 2000, at the Carney Hospital in Boston.
Born Dec. 21, 1902, in Ireland, she was the daughter of James and Catherine (Doherty) Kane. She had resided in Portsmouth for the past 70 years.
A communicant of St. Catherine of Siena Church, she was a member of its Women's Club.
She was the wife of the late Timothy J. Regan, who died in 1978.
Survivors include two sons, James M. Regan of Milton, Mass., and Thomas E. Regan of Portsmouth; four daughters, Mary Gralton of Quincy, Mass., Carol Brennan of Newburyport, Mass., Ellen Addorio of Greenland, and Sheila Regan of Weymouth, Mass.; 17 grandchildren; many great-grandchildren; and several nieces and nephews.
She was predeceased by two sons, Timothy Joseph Regan Jr. and John Joseph Regan, and a daughter, Teresa Gill.
Nancy J. Slonus
PORTSMOUTH - Nancy J. (Irwin) Slonus, 89, of 928 South St., died Wednesday, April 12, 2000, at the Edgewood Centre.
Born Nov. 22, 1910, in Sligo, Ireland, she was the daughter of the late James and Agnes (O'Dowd) Irwin.
She was the owner of the former Hank and Fan's Restaurant in Portsmouth.
She was a communicant of the Immaculate Conception Church and for many years was a member of the Retired Senior Volunteer Program in Portsmouth.
She was the wife of the late George Slonus.
Survivors include one daughter, Carol Robbins of Newfields; two grandchildren, Michael Robbins of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Lauren Robbins of Greenland; one very perfect great-granddaughter, Michelle Anne Robbins; nieces, Joyce Martin and her husband, Joseph, of Eliot and Lynn Sjolund and her family of Kirkland, Wash.; and several other nieces and nephews.
Willis J. Pettigrew
KITTERY - Willis J. Pettigrew, 87, of Picott Road died Wednesday, April 12, 2000, at York Hospital after a long illness.
He was born on June 30, 1912, at the family's home in Kittery, the son of Arthur and Addie (Johnson) Pettigrew and attended Traip Academy.
He had been employed at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard for 38 years in the supply and comptroller departments as a clerical supervisor, retiring in 1967.
He had owned and operated the Pettigrew Homestead Farm since 1948. He enjoyed following the Red Sox and Celtics games and watching professional wrestling.
He was the husband of Frances (Johnston) Pettigrew of Kittery for 62 years.
Other survivors include one daughter, Mrs. George (Fay) Major of Somersworth; two grandchildren, Kerry Major of San Diego and Kimberly Major of Somersworth; and one great-granddaughter, Brittany Adrien of Somersworth.
Acker N. Hilbourne
YORK - Acker N. "Bunk" Hilbourne Jr., 66, 25 Ridge Road, died unexpectedly Thursday, April 12, 2000, at Portsmouth Hospital.
Born June 18, 1933 in Lynn, Mass., he was the son of Acker N. Sr. and Adelaide (Farrar) Hilbourne. He was a graduate of Wells High School and served in the Navy Seabees.
He was a self-employed carpenter and craftsman for more than 40 years. He spent the last eight years of his employment as a carpenter with R.P. Hodgin Contracting Co. of York, retiring in 1990.
He was known for his love of fishing and motorcycles.
He was the husband of the late Marsha E. (Adams) Hilbourne. She died in 1982.
Survivors include one son, Dale S. Hilbourne and his wife, Gail (Frost) Hilbourne of York; two daughters, Mrs. Bruce (Debra L.) Bjorna and Karen Hilbourne both of Glendale, Ariz; one sister, Audrey Jenkins of Newmarket; a niece, Bobby Jenkins; four grandchildren, Jason and Adam Hilbourne and Bryan and Amanda Bjorna; and his longtime companion, Catherine Trent of York.
Nancy J. Slonus
PORTSMOUTH - Nancy J. (Irwin) Slonus, 89, of 928 South St., died Wednesday, April 12, 2000, at the Edgewood Centre.
Born Nov. 22, 1910, in Sligo, Ireland, she was the daughter of the late James and Agnes (O'Dowd) Irwin.
She was the owner of the former Hank and Fan's Restaurant in Portsmouth.
She was a communicant of the Immaculate Conception Church and for many years was a member of the Retired Senior Volunteer Program in Portsmouth.
She was the wife of the late George Slonus.
Survivors include one daughter, Carol Robbins of Newfields; two grandchildren, Michael Robbins of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Lauren Robbins of Greenland; one very perfect great-granddaughter, Michelle Anne Robbins; nieces, Joyce Martin and her husband, Joseph, of Eliot and Lynn Sjolund and her family of Kirkland, Wash.; and several other nieces and nephews.
Graveside services will be announced by the J. Verne Wood Funeral Home.
