Allegra Shenefiel Lake, 93, formerly of Delhi and Walton, and the mother of 13 children, 121 grand, great-grand, and great-great-grandchildren, died peacefully after several years of care for dementia and congestive heart failure at the home of her daughter in Binghamton.
Allegra Helen Shenefiel was born to David and Rosa Hoxie Shenefiel in her grandparents’ farmhouse on June 25, 1928, on Hoxie Hill Road, Napoli. She was the eldest of seven children and spent her early years on her parent’s dairy farm in rural Cattaraugus County. She recalled her life during the Great Depression, living without modern lighting, an indoor bathroom, or an automobile. Electric power lines did not extend to their remote farm. Mrs. Lake helped her parents raise chickens and vegetables on their farm and narrowly missed attending a one-room schoolhouse because of the advent of New York state school centralization in the 1930s. During World War II, her father, having built a small windmill to generate a few watts of electricity for their farmhouse, traveled to Delhi to observe the early stages of the Delaware County Electric Cooperative. Upon returning home, Mrs. Lake recalled how her father helped organize the Chautauqua-Cattaraugus Rural Electric Cooperative in 1945, bringing the first commercial electricity to their farm. A few years later, her father installed the first television for miles around, and, Mrs. Lake recalled, with a rudimentary antenna atop their farm’s 1,890-foot Hoxie Hill, it drew friends and neighbors to watch TV programs from Buffalo 60 miles away.
Mrs. Lake traced her paternal family history to the Palatine German emigration to Pennsylvania in 1733, and her maternal family history to the English migration into Rhode Island and Massachusetts in the mid-1600s. Her grandfather’s family worked as pioneer cattle ranchers among the Comanche tribe of north Texas in the 1880s. Her great-grandfather was honored for capturing his regimental colors during the second Battle of Bull Run in the Civil War. He went on to serve in other great battles at Chancellorsville, Manassas, Gettysburg, and the Battle of the Wilderness where a Confederate gunshot to the knee left him wounded.
A 1946 graduate of Randolph Central School, Mrs. Lake initially pursued architectural design studies at New York State Agricultural and Technical College at Alfred. Her June 14, 1947 marriage to her high school classmate, Warren C. Lake of Kennedy interrupted her studies, and a family soon followed. While Mr. Lake was in the U.S. Navy assigned to the destroyer USS Perry, the couple briefly lived in Philadelphia, Pa., then, Dayton, South Dayton, and Woodville before settling for many years in Ellisburg. She was a member of the Ellisburg Methodist Church, and she volunteered in her children’s school, where they played, assisted, and cheered for the Union Academy at Belleville basketball team while setting a New York state record 104-game win streak that still stands today. While raising her 13 children, she was also a member of the Ellisburg Fire Department Ladies Auxiliary. Mr. Lake died on Oct. 27, 1983.
Mrs. Lake enjoyed a long career in healthcare. As a pharmacy clerk, she was employed by Fay’s Drugs in Watertown and later moved to the Catskills, where she was known as Ann Lake. She performed a similar role at the Walton Pharmacy and Delaware Valley Hospital. Upon becoming an elder care aide, Mrs. Lake re-entered college for nursing at SUNY Delhi and Broome Community College. She was awarded degrees in Licensed Practical Nursing and Registered Nursing in the same years as some of her children graduated from Walton High School. She then was awarded a bachelor’s degree in sociology at SUNY Oneonta. Her late-in-life achievements were chronicled in The Reporter in the mid-1980s. She moved to Delhi, settling into her beloved 1886 Victorian house where, she said, similar to the Allegheny Plateau of her youth, she felt at home in the thickly forested mountains of the western Catskills. She became a nurse at O’Connor Hospital and then the nursing supervisor at the Delaware County Home and Infirmary until her retirement at 70.
One of the highlights of her life after retirement was a trip to Alaska, where she took a solo passenger flight in a small chartered ski plane into the wilderness. She also capped off her retirement with a trip to England to see the White Cliffs of Dover, a vivid memory of her teenage youth while listening to European war news on her family’s battery-operated farm radio.
An engaging conversationalist about Catskill Mountain historical farm architecture and its flora and fauna, during her many forays into the rural countryside, Mrs. Lake was often quizzed about her New York license plate which displayed the moniker, “Ma-of-13.” She replied with either dry humor or no explanation whatsoever. She occasionally helped at her daughter’s Delhi Diner restaurant, where patrons frequently requested her homemade cookies. After her first retirement, she continued working as a part-time hospice nurse and caretaker for Catskill Area Hospice until the onset of dementia forced her final retirement at 80. She often said that her proud professional and personal accomplishment was providing expert and tender care for people in their final stages of life, including her eldest daughter, Julie Lake Bettinger, who died at 50.
Mrs. Lake enjoyed quilting, sewing, knitting, photography, bowling, geology, and gardening with flowers, vegetables, and weeds! Also, wild bird and squirrel feeding, food pantry volunteering, canning fruits and vegetables, and baking rich, buttery cinnamon buns and oatmeal/chocolate chip cookies She loved reading books and magazines. She favored her sizable collection of fiction and nonfiction books on many subjects, including romance and western novels and biographies of renowned historical figures. She often could be found asleep in the early morning hours with an open book collapsed on her chest.
Possessing sardonic wit, Mrs. Lake occasionally displayed scornful disdain to anyone who interrupted her favorite hour of television: Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. She roamed the Catskills, photographing the region’s rapidly disappearing bank barns featuring decorative cupolas, and she amassed a collection of more than 10,000 photographs of 19th century barn architecture. She was an avid quilter and fabric hoarder, having completed dozens of quilts passed on to her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and, to their chagrin, boxes and boxes of scrap fabrics; and, she could knit a pair of mittens and a warm winter hat in a day, often donating them to newborn and needy children.
Her children’s father and three siblings predeceased Mrs. Lake: Bruce, David Shenefiel, and Margaret Shenefiel Bailey. She was also predeceased by her infant twin children, Jodie and Wayne Lake, her daughter Julie (James) Bettinger, granddaughter Jayne McGowan, and great-granddaughter Arden Davis.
Survivors include her siblings Barbara (Gilbert-deceased) Myers, Williston, Vermont; Randall (Frances) Shenefiel, Falconer; and Lola (William) Armstrong, Chebeague Island, Maine. Survivors also include her children Signe (James) McGowan, Henderson Harbor; Gregory (Diane) Lake, Ellisburg; Daniel (Jeanne) Lake, Fuquay-Varina, N.C.; Joy Lake Archer, Leesburg, Fla.; Jill (Donald) Lang, Homer-Skaneateles Lake; Jarol Lake, Binghamton; Karen (Larry) Hounshell, Mabank, Texas; Kevin (Jeanne) Lake, Ellisburg; Timothy Lake, Henderson Harbor; Jordan (Robert) Walsh, Lewes, Del.; Jonathan (Melissa) Lake, Port Crane; and Cory Lake, Binghamton. Mrs. Lake is also survived by 37 grandchildren, 76 great-grandchildren, eight great-great-grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews.
Since the onset of her dementia, Mrs. Lake’s children remained determined to alternate duties and care for their mother at home instead of relying on the professional services of a nursing home. For two years, no fewer than 32 family members performed overnight watch duty via Internet cameras so those at home with Mrs. Lake could get some sleep.
Interment with her parents, brother, and infant twins, will be performed later at the East Randolph Cemetery.
The Lake and Shenefiel families appreciate the services of Marita, Liz, Amy, Mae, and Tristyn of Lourdes Family Practice, Palliative and Hospice Care. They also thank Laura and the team at the Yesteryears adult day program of the Broome County Office for Aging, and Diane and Sherry. They were available to help supervise Mrs. Lake during her advancing years.
Allegra Shenefiel Lake. Kathleen Keck Photography. Rights approved for Obituary
In place of flowers, consider a donation in Mrs. Lake’s name to Yesteryears, Helios Care (formerly Catskill Area Hospice and Palliative Care), or Medi-Teddy.org, an internationally renowned non-profit 501(c) 3 public charity founded by Mrs. Lake’s great-granddaughter, Ella Casano, and providing comfort teddy bears to pediatric and adult I.V. and enteral feeding patients.
Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.bennettfh.com for the Lake family.
