Adalia Jane Pomeroy Feb 22 2009

Tiffany Thompspon bore Adalia Jane Pomeroy 2/22/2009 at 6:44pm,
weighing in at 6lb 9oz and 20 inches.

Mom & Baby are doing great, and expect to be home on Tuesday.
Dad and big brother Declan are also doing great.
Happiness to Everyone!

Tiffany, Bob, Declan & Adalia!

Second grandaughter of Carol Phyllis Sigler Pomeroy & Richard Silas Pomeroy

Lorraine S. Rakowski (2008-05-06)

Lorraine S. Rakowski, a resident of Idyllbrook Village in Millcreek, passed away Monday, May 6, 2008 at her residence. Born in St. Mary’s, West Virginia, she was a daughter of the late Homer and Mollie (Calvert) Sigler.
A graduate of Kittanning High School, she worked in the offices of Erie General Electric for thirty five years, retiring in 1983. Lorraine enjoyed traveling, playing cards and spending time with her friends and family. She was a member of Saint Patrick Church. She was preceded in death by her husband, Thaddeus A. “Ted” Rakowski, in 2004, and by two brothers, James and George Sigler. Survivors include a sister, Arlene Karlinchak, husband George, of Erie; a niece, Lori Lesniewski, husband Mike, of Millcreek; two nephews, Kenneth G. Karlinchak, wife Krystal, and their son, great-nephew Jackson, of Charlotte, NC, and Richard J. Karlinchak, of Huntersville, NC; and further survived by several other nieces, nephews, great-nieces, great-nephews, and many dear friends. Friends may call Friday from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. at the Brugger Home for Funerals, 1595 West 38th Street at Greengarden Boulevard. Services will be held there Saturday at 10:15 a.m., followed by a Mass of Christian Burial at Saint Patrick Church at 11 o’clock. Burial in Calvary Cemetery.
Memorials may be made to the American Lung Assn. of PA, Erie Outreach, 3524 West 26th St., 16506. Thomas Christopher "Bones" Sigler sent this on an email. Bones is a nephew of Lorraine.

Uncle Tommy

I have several pictures that I would like to share of my Uncle Tommy. He is my father's older brother--and we share the same birthday--I am just a few years younger. The first two pictures are from a family gathering at Joanne's house almost three years ago. One is Uncle Tommy with his sisters and their husbands and my mother. My father was not living at the time of the gathering. The second is of his family--Uncle Tommy and his children. The third is of my father and mother and Uncle Tommy from 1995. This is my first time posting on a blog -- hope it works.

Boyd "Tom" Sigler's Obituary in Courier-Journal

Sigler, Boyd Cooper "Tom"

SIGLER, BOYD COOPER "TOM," 92, died Friday, April 18, 2008. A celebration will be announced at a later date.

Published in The Courier-Journal on 4/20/2008.

Sigler, Boyd Cooper "Tom"	View/Sign Guest Book
SIGLER, BOYD COOPER "TOM," AE4LV, 92, of Louisville died April 18, 2008. He was born in Sharps Run, Schultz WV, graduated from Norwood High School, Norwood OH, Coast Guard Signalman 1/c Sigler served on Lake Michigan during World War II. He began his business career with Household Finance and managed the office in Hazard, Kentucky, before moving with his family to Louisville in 1952. He retired as an insurance agent with CPCU, CLU certification, associated with Employers Mutual of Wausau, Booker & Kinnaird, and NTVL. Tom volunteered for the American Red Cross & Civil Defense, and handled traffic as an Amateur Radio operator, and as an original member of the Louisville and Jefferson Co RACES. He rode with the Southern Indiana Wheelmen, Louisville Bicycle Club; ran with Iroquois Hill Runners, and Cherokee Road Runners logging many miles on foot and bike, recipient of the Round the World award, 1999 and Tour de Heart, Dennis Corbett Spirit award, 1995. He provided leadership with Boy Scouts of America primarily Troop 198, Old KY Home Council. Later he led a troop in Southwick and received nomination for the Silver Beaver. He was preceded in death by his wife of 51 years, Ethel Eleanor Schoenberger; his parents, Hazel Gertrude Forkner Sigler Orbaugh Coe and John Morgan Sigler; stepmother, Mildred Elizabeth Wierhake; and brother, John Elmer. He is survived by his children, William Thomas II, Spenard, AK, Barbara Helen, Mary Kathryn Kohnhorst (Allen), Nashville, TN, Ethel Susan Peters (Bob), Clarksville, IN and Joanne Marie, Lexington, KY; grandchildren Matthew Patrick Morgan, Sonia Sheamarie Farrally, Demian Boyd-Kalil, Chaytea Kemp Nielsen Sigler; Daniel Morgan Alexander Redmon; Bridgette Marie, David Colin, Heidi Jean Kohnhorst; Hannah Kristen, Elizabeth Anne Strunk; nine great grand-children; sisters, Peggy Joanne Elsnau (John), Carole Phyllis Pomeroy (Richard), sisters-in-law, Willa Koenig Sigler, and Helen Jo Schoenberger; and numerous nieces and nephews. A celebration of his life will be held at Huber's Family Farm & Restaurant, Starlight, IN, May 10 from 3-8 p.m, www.joehubers.com The family requests donations to Hospice of the Bluegrass, 2312 Alexandria Dr. 40504, Boy Scouts of America, or the American Radio Relay League
Published in The Courier-Journal on 4/27/2008.

Visit to Siglers in Louisville, Fall 1964

This is a photo of some of the Sigler clan taken in September of 1964 at the Michigan Ave home of Tom and Ethel.
Ethel is holding Carol Pomeroy (1), Kathy (17), Susie (14), Tom (49). Bill was away with Coast Guard and we slept in his room. We were visiting from Rochester, NY.
Remember that Tom was doing some concrete work on the sidewalks when we were there.
Tom entertained Dick in his basement radio room and showed his equipment and made some calls.
Phyllis and Dick

Boyd "Tom" Sigler after Breaking Leg, Age 69

Overcoming Adversity Swimmingly

Boyd Sigler is a competitor, not a quitter.

From newspaper article in Louisville Courier-Journal Neighborhoods/City Oct 31/Nov 1, 1984

By Grace Schneider, Staff Writer

[Article written after Tom had broken his leg and was doing rehabilitation, at age 69]

Boyd Sigler has often brought up the rear in cycling and road races, but he’s a front runner when it comes to fighting adversity.

Sigler, 69, a long-distance runner and two-time triathlon competitor, hit a skid in his daily cycling and running routine when he broke a leg in a cycling accident last May. But he is proof that injuries can’t keep an active man down.

Sigler recently completed a 50-mile lap-swimming series at the YMCA on Third Street. And he is pedaling an hour a day on a stationary bike to regain his strength and flexibility.

“That kid ran across the country with one leg. If he can do it, I can.” said Sigler, referring to Fairfield, Conn. native, Jeff Keith, a one-legged man who is running across the country to raise money for the American Cancer Society.

Sigler’s daily workouts are short and easy compared with his former training. The retired insurance underwriter, who lives in the West End with his wife, Ethel, has run every Mini-Marathon since the 13.1-mile race began 11 years ago.

And he holds the record in his 65-and-older group for the Metro Marathon and the Ultra-distance Classic, the 50-mile run between Frankfort and Louisville.

His wrinkled face and broad-shouldered, 6-foot frame have been a common sight at 10,000-meter and other distance races around the county.

In 1982, he drove his car 2,000 miles and ran 4,000 miles, Sigler said. Part of that mileage was built up while training for a marathon in New Orleans.

He ran six miles in the morning around the Shawnee Park area. Then he’d come back and put on a backpack and run another 5-1/2 miles to work downtown. Lunch hour found him running another six from the Louisville Athletic Club, at 430 W. Muhammad Ali Blvd., across the Clark Memorial Bridge and back.

He’d run home after work – another 5-1/2 miles – and cap it off with an easy five or six miles in the evening.

His dogged dedication to his workouts resulted in some gentle ribbing, according to Bill Peterson, a fellow distance runner and senior citizen record holder.

“People would kid him about the fact that he would run and walk to the race site. He was never too fast, but he was great in long-distance races,” said Peterson, of Winding Road in southern Louisville.

Once, on the way to a 10-kilometer race at Long Run Park in eastern Jefferson County, Peterson picked up Sigler running along Shelbyville Road; he had already run about 10 miles.

Several years ago, they both ran the 50-mile Ultra-distance Classic. The next day, Peterson was standing on the sidelines at a two- or three-mile race and saw Sigler run by. “I could hardly walk after that thing. After fifty miles, you’re pretty sore. But darned if he didn’t run that race,” Peterson said, laughing.

Sigler’s fascination with fitness took hold when his daughter, Susie, and a friend began running in the late1960s at the Shawnee High School track to prepare for college athletics. He went along to keep an eye on them.

Ms. Sigler recalled that her father sat in the bleachers and watched for about a week. Then he began jogging. Soon he was entering races and becoming a long-distance addict.

Sigler says he enjoys the camaraderie of running as “much as the sport itself.”

He likes the way runners complain about their injuries and downplay their excitement about races. “After the race you ask them how they did and they’ll say, ‘Oh, not too good.’ It’s an interesting social event,” Sigler said, smiling.

Three years ago at his daughter Susie’s suggestion, he added swimming and cycling to his exercise programs and entered two triathlon races, combining legs of swimming, running, and cycling.

“He’s one of those people who just keep on plugging,” said Ms. Sigler who lives in Crescent Hill. Last year at E. P. “Tom” Sawyer State Park, Ms. Sigler, a teacher and coach at Sacred Heart Academy, won the woman’s race. And her father received a plaque, swimming trunks and a pair of goggles for winning his age group and being the oldest finisher.

He took training rides often with friends from the area Wheelman’s clubs and was looking forward to a good summer of riding and running when he turned too sharply on a gravel-strewn asphalt road on the 100-mile Tour of the Scioto River Valley ride, a round-trip tour from Columbus to Portsmouth, Ohio, last May.

He ended up with a break high in his left leg, and doctors had to reattach the bone with metal nails and screws. A week after he returned home from a three-week hospital stay, he hitched a ride to the YMCA and started swimming laps.

“I told the doctors they can’t treat him like most older men. He’s a lot more muscular than a lot of others, ” said Sigler’s wife, Ethel.

During the first weeks, he got into and out of the pool by taking his crutches into the water with him.

The YMCA’s long-distance lap swimming program “helped me stay with it”, he said.

But returning to running might not be so easy. “My running is zilch,” Sigler said. In addition, it hurts him to ride his moving cycle and “after a block it loses its novelty.”

But Sigler is still reaping the rewards of his running career, despite his present injuries. His name was picked in a drawing at the four-mile Run for the Sun downtown last March for a free five-day windjammer cruise in the Bahamas.

“Well,” Sigler said matter-of-factly, “I guess I’ll try some snorkeling.”

Boyd "Tom" Sigler Mini-Marathon Runner, Age 62

From Courier-Journal. 1978. Speaking of People Page. by Joan Kay

Mini-Marathon goal of runner, 62, is to beat his own best time

"I know I can't compete against the rabbits," says Boyd C. "Tom" Sigler, referring to the thin, rangy runners. "So I'm hoping I can better my own time" Monday in the fifth annual Kentucky Derby Festival Mini-Marathon.
Sigler was "elated" 10 days ago when he beat his usual 10-minute-mile pace in a prep race at Iroquois Park. He ran the 9.6 mile course in 94 minutes and 29 seconds, or 9.84 minutes per mile. "That's my best time to date," he said.
The 62-year old Sigler, an insurance man, will be competing Monday for the fifth time in the Mini-Marathon, a 13-mile course from Iroquois Park to the Belvedere.
His interest in the sport started about eight years ago when a friend of his daughter, Sue, got a bid for the 1972 Olympics girls' basketball team. The two girls wanted to get in shape by running on Shawnee High School's track, so Sigler went along to keep an eye on them.
"They went back to Eastern Kentucky University, and I just kept running," he said.
Later Sigler began taking part in the Saturday races sponsored about once a month in various parks by the Metropolitan Park and Recreation Board.
"It's really more fun to run with a group," he said. "You get lazy running by yourself".
"Although I'm not much competition, I think I win the booby prize more than anything else," he said with a laugh. "Someone has to be last."
On Saturdays he is usually the only runner older than 60. "There was some old codger of 64 who beat the socks off me last year in the Mini-Marathon."
Sigler did "miserably" in a race this winter at Iroquois Park and decided he needed more practice for the Derby event. "I figured the best way to do it was to run back and forth to work."
The insurance firm he works for, Nahm, Turner, Vaughan & Landrum, maintains a membership at the Louisville Athletic Club, so Sigler arranged to change clothing there.
Since mid-February he has been running the 35 blocks each way from Fifth and Walnut to his home on Michigan Drive. His best time to date going homeward was 34 minutes, 45 seconds.
The reactions of the people he passes by are generally "favorable," he said. "I think everyone really wants to get out and jog, but they just don't do it."
He enjoys the regimen because "You can run off a lot of frustrations. It gives you time to think and enjoy nature. I saw a couple of crows one morning."
At first he felt better physically. "But you get used to feeling better. Then it's just habit-forming, and you don't feel right if you don't do it."
"I got Sue out in the rain the other morning, and I told her 'You're hooked now.' " Sue, assistant coach at Sacred Heart Academy, will be running in her first Mini-Marathon this year.
Sigler goes to bed at 9 p.m. because his day starts early. "The insurance business is one of continual study," and he gets up at 5 a.m. to read for an hour before going to the park.
Sigler's wife, Ethel, is not a runner. When he ran last July in a 10,000-meter race in Lexington, "She got a blister from standing and watching the race," joked Sigler. But "she kind of encourages me because she packs my pack (of clothes) every day."
In last year's Mini-Marathon Sigler was 818th out of th 942 people who finished the race, and his time was 2 hours, 24 minutes, and 44 seconds.
As of Monday, there were 1,016 paid entries in this year's event. Gil Clark, recreational services manager for Metropolitan Parks, has been responsible for all the Mini-Marathons, and he is expecting 1,500 to 2,000 entrants this year.
"The Mini has a very festive atmosphere, heightened by the numbers of spectators who turn out," said Sigler.
He remembered that last year by the time he reached a fruit-drink stand station on Southern Parkway, there were no liquids left. But a kind woman on the parkway was out with a pitcher and glasses, offering a cool drink to all of the runners.
Sigler is convinced he'll never be a serious contender as a runner. "I'm a fatty. A runner should only weigh twice as much as his height," he said. "I'm 72 inches tall, and I'd have to get down to 144 pounds."
"I'm like the bumblebee. Aerodynamically he can't fly, but doesn't know it." But Sigler is determined to hit only 195 pounds on the scale by Monday.