Obituary, Linda Sweeney

Awarded the right to market an unlikely hare-brained scheme, the Sweeneys were provided a room rent-free by Jerry and Rosemary Jerominek (today, it’s “Tatra Prints” on Tannery Brook Road) to become the small factory, set up by them both, wherein Kevin repeatedly “simulated” a single wound from a single plastic mold first developed by the U.S. Army, for use in first aid training. “Simulaids” was not an overnight success, but the Sweeneys proved dogged — their gradually growing company changing locations many times. From the Jerominek’s to the Tripicos’ annex on 212 next to St Gregory’s A-frame church; then next to Bearsville in what was last The Overlook Press, and finally, to the large building “two back” from the Gypsy Wolf on Dixon Avenue, before the company was sold and moved to Saugerties several years ago. By the early seventies the Sweeneys had — with a great variety of wound replicas and “first-aid-dummies” — wrested a large share of a booming market (from such monsters as Alderson Research Company) at the forefront of the fast growing national “search and rescue” movement.

On the home front, son Seamus was born in 1970 — a time when a 36 year old mother-to-be was considered “at risk.” And so Linda gave birth at New York Hospital. Shannon recalls both herself and Bridget being summoned to the principal’s office at Onteora, whereupon their mother was patched in from the big city by phone, ecstatically, delivering the news. These were the days when Linda — between preparing mouth-watering meals and otherwise mothering her growing brood — partook passionately in highly dramatic friendships with Woodstock women, pitched in at a fast-growing company, and soon became renowned in the one art form every one in town seemed equally to favor — that of throwing a party. For while Simulaids would eventually provide them wealth, Kevin and Linda were crowned king and queen of Woodstock’s rollicking social scene, long before the company boasted as many as 75 employees (second only in size only to Rotron.)

In days gone by Woodstock’s elaborate party calendar kicked off the year with Holly Cantine’s May Day Bash (never complete without his Woodchuck Hollow Band playing slightly off-key) and ended (after many a pagan sober’d up briefly at Father Francis’ Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve) at the Villchur’s New Year’s Day Party. Between these twin goal posts general pandemonium reigned, more often than not with a buzz begun at Woodstock’s beloved bar, The Seahorse. Many a memorable revel revolved ‘round the Dixieland strains of Robin Wetterau’s Cinderella Rooftop Band, which several times played ‘til very near dawn at the Sweeney studio. Here various families’ children slept on cast-off coats atop the balcony, wakening occasionally to groggily oversee their parents below…eating, drinking, cavorting and dancing away the night.

Then there was The Party in Mead’s Meadow organized by Nancy and Bob Haney, Pam Feeley and Robin Wetterau, and Kevin and Linda Sweeney — though I ‘bleeve it was Kevin and Linda who, in the end, carried the day by trucking a piano over field & stream just above Magic Meadow. This, the very piano Robin played for, some say, as many as ten hours, in what has, indeed been called “the jewel in the crown” of Woodstock parties. (Commemorated by that piano of yore left as monument of the occasion…to decompose in that clearing immortalized thus…’til the strings rotted into ruts of courdoroy’d rust and the ivories curled up & were carried away on the backs of a troop of ferocious fire ants, who, to this day, terrorize the spot.)

It seems that not long after “The Party” that the Sweeneys bought quite the country-squire’s residence at the bottom of a steep hill…where indeed a dozen or more galas flowered and bloomed ‘til they late, late at night fizzled. With car keys held — pending a more sober driver’s return the following day — and left-overs were wrapped up and sent home for the hired helps’ many mouths to feed, as the large, gorgeous house grew at last quiet and still, filled as it was with an extraordinary collection of our local painter’s best.