~ IN MEMORY ~
Military
veteran, NEA/DL Capt. John 'Jack' Richard Fegela
October 15, 1940
~ November 15, 2020
From the family
of Captain Jack Fegela: "I am
writing to let you know that Jack passed away today (Nov.15). He was 80. Just
had a birthday in October. He is in a better place. He was bed ridden and
frail." Captain Fegela first joined
Northeast Airlines 12-02-1968 and retired with Delta Air Lines in 2000, based
030/QNY at time of his retirement. Jack is
survived by his wife Ruthi, his sons and his granddaughter. To date I've not been able to locate an
online funeral home obituary but I did find a very nice life story article
dated May 5, 2012....please see below.
Captain Fegela
had most recently resided in Effingham NH. Should more information be received we will be
sure to pass it along.
Thank you,
~ Carol for the PCN
https://archive.triblive.com/news/time-cant-erase-fegelas-memories/
Time can't erase
Fegela's memories
Dated Saturday, May 5, 2012
He’s been gone
from the area for some 40 years, but Jack Fegela fondly remembers growing up in
the Charleroi area as though it were yesterday.
“Those were
great years and I still cherish them dearly,” said Fegela, of Strafford, N.H.,
near Portsmouth. “How could anyone who grew up in the (Mon) Valley ever forget
being there?”
Fegela, the son
of the late John and Mary Ellen Fegela, lived in Carroll Township, near
Monongahela Valley Country Club, and is a 1958 graduate of Charleroi High
School. He attended California State Teachers College and earned his degree in
1954.
“My mother was
from Monessen, and her maiden name was Sherwin,” Fegela said. “I remember her
telling me she knew Stan Musial, the baseball player from Donora. I always
thought that was neat. She worked in the office at the U.S. Steel plant at
Dravosburg. My dad was an electrician and worked at the Allenport plant of
Pittsburgh Steel Co.”
Fegela’s aunt,
Elizabeth (Betty) Culler, was a bookkeeper for many years at The Charleroi
Mail, and his aunt and uncle, the late George and Ida Fegela, also lived in
Charleroi.
“Both of them
were golf champions at Mon Valley Country Club,” he said of George and Ida
Fegela. “Uncle George was the guy who did those great train displays at
Christmastime in the department store (Collins) next to Wolf’s Clothing store.
People used to stand in front of those large windows on McKean Avenue and watch
the trains go round and round. My aunt and uncle also did photography for the
high school kids for a number of years, senior pictures and so forth.”
Fegela, a
retired Delta Airlines pilot, also has a half sister, Gail Lynn Fegela Waham,
who now lives in Cincinnati. She is a graduate of Monongahela Valley Catholic
High School.
“I haven’t been
back to the area for several years, so I’m not sure how many relatives are
still around,” Fegela said. “I know we were related to the Mazanetz family who
live near 10th Street and the Dzurinko family from Lock Four.”
Fegela says he
was a “typical teenager growing up in the ’50s.”
“We were always
cruisin’ somewhere in the Valley, going to dances at places like the Jumpin’
Jive Bee Hive and other canteens in the area,” he said. “That was the beginning
of rock ‘n’ roll, and we enjoyed it so much. I remember swimming and boating in
the Monongahela River, the great old-timers who lived near the old streetcar
barn on McKean Avenue, roller skating, terrific ethnic food, Stetz pop, Lock
Four hill and having friends in every town in the Valley, places like Donora,
Monongahela, Stockdale, Dunlevy, Allenport and California.”
Also lingering
in Fegela’s memory bank are “fizzy drinks” at Geezer’s Drug Store, the long
walk up Fifth Street to Charleroi High School, sled riding down 10th Street,
and Ss. Cyril and Methodius School.
“And I’ll never
forget working at Wolf’s Clothing store my last two years of college,” Fegela
said. “The Wolf brothers, Harry and Ed, were great guys.”
Another vivid
memory was created in the fall of 1962 when Fegela did his student teaching at
Donora High School.
“I taught
11th-grade English and had a great time there,” he smiled. “I remember a very
bright, well-spoken and well-dressed black girl who sat in the front row. Her
name was Rochella Dixon. About 10 years ago, I was watching my newly adopted
football team, the New England Patriots, and it was the first home game of the
season. They were introducing a rookie running back who went to Pitt named Curtis
Martin and the TV cameras panned the crowd and showed his mother in the stands.
The announcer said her name was Rochella. Well, I’ve only met one Rochella in
my life and there she was. Curtis Martin is her son.”
Although he
earned a teaching degree from California, Fegela’s career decisions were
altered because of a military obligation.
“I took my first
airplane ride when I was 5 years old at Deep Creek, Md., and I loved it,”
Fegela said. “Maybe that stuck with me, I’m not sure. But I joined the Navy
Reserve when I was in college so I didn’t get drafted into the Army and I had
to go on active duty for two years after graduation. I had the opportunity to
go to officer candidate school but declined because it would have added two
more years to my military commitment.”
As an enlisted
man, Fegela became a Navy photojournalist and was assigned to a ship in the
Mediterranean Sea during the Vietnam War.
“About six
months before my Navy hitch was up, I got transferred from that ship to the
Jacksonville Navy Air Station in Florida and became a speech writer for the
base admiral,” Fegela said. “There was a Navy flying club there, and I learned
to fly and got a private pilot’s license.”
After his
discharge from the Navy, Fegela moved to Fort Lauderdale and worked in general
aviation before obtaining a commercial pilot’s license and an instrument
rating. He built his flying hours by piloting charter flights and also working
for a small oil company, delivering parts to their gas stations throughout
Florida. In 1967, he moved to New Jersey and took a course for a flight
engineer’s license.
“I kept applying
to all of the airlines because I met all of their qualifications — flying
hours, honorable military discharge, commercial pilot’s license, instrument
rating,” he said. “And I had passed the flight engineer FAA written exam. I was
finally hired as a pilot by Northeast Airlines and started my training in
December 1968. In 1970, Northeast and Delta merged, and I flew as flight
engineer, then copilot and finally as captain before retiring from Delta at the
FAA mandatory retirement age of 60 in October of 2000.”
Fegela was
married for 36 years to the former Elizabeth Nichols Underhill, of East Orange,
N.J., an accomplished pianist and gourmet cook. She died at age 59 on May 23,
2003, after a long battle with cancer. The couple had two sons, Christopher
Sears Fegela and Michael Major Fegela.
Christopher, 33,
lives in Cape Cod, Mass., and works as a computer engineer at the Massachusetts
Maritime Academy. He is the father of Jack’s only grandchild, Nadia Elizabeth
Fegela. Michael, 29, is a construction foreman in Santa Cruz, Calif.
“They’re both
great kids,” Fegela said. “I’m very proud of them.”
Retirement has
been filled with anything but slowing down for Fegela, who has remarried. He
and his wife, Ruth, live in “the New Hampshire woods with tons of deer, wild
turkey, moose and bears who feel confident enough to walk through the driveway
and hang out around our house,” he said.
In 2004 Fegela
was his own general contractor and built a state-of-the-art passive solar, log
envelope house, which became a model home for the Log Home Company in North
Carolina.
“You can see it
being built at www.enertia.com,”
Fegela said. “Their site also explains the concept of an envelope house.”
Fegela also
remains an avid car buff and has several, including a 1973 Jeep Scrambler, a
1978 Volkswagen Bug Champagne II Edition convertible, two super-customized
Chrysler PT Cruisers and a fun side-by-side RUV, a Yamaha Rhino 660 that he and
his wife ride in the woods and use for yard work and property maintenance.
“The VW has
about 20,000 miles on it now, and it only comes out on sunny days,” Fegela
said, laughing.
As if that
weren’t enough to keep him busy, Fegela also enjoys his guns and does a lot of
target shooting. And he likes to cook.
“I’m a master of
deep frying turkeys and started doing it about 10 years before Martha Stewart
ever heard of it and then made it the biggest thing since sliced bread,” Fegela
said.
Food also plays
an important role in Fegela’s memories of life in Charleroi and the Mon Valley.
“I remember very
vividly having my mother take me to Rego’s restaurant,” he said. “I’m talking
about the very old place, the original one. As you walked in there was a long
bar on the right and booths to the left. The fried shrimp and cocktail sauce
that I used to get there made such an impression on my young pallet that I
never forgot it. The fried shrimp from Rego’s is still the benchmark, and
subconsciously I measure any that I have now by that standard.”
