08.27.2013 Obituaries

Beatrice Wasson Fechtig

Former longtime Laurel resident Beatrice Wasson Fechtig died Aug. 22 in Albuquerque, N.M. She was 96 years old.

She was born May 25, 1917, in Coudersport, Pa., to Herman D. and Henrietta Fleschutz and moved in 1938 to Southold, where she taught home economics at the high school. She recalled that during her first year of teaching, when the winds of the 1938 hurricane began, one of her students raised his hand and asked, “Miss Fleschutz, may I please be excused? Our family’s chicken coop just flew by the window!”

In 1940, she married John L. Wasson, D.D.S., who practiced dentistry at the Gildersleeve Octagon Building in Mattituck from 1935 until his death in 1954. As a widow, she managed the newly renovated cafeteria at Mattituck High School and went on to own and operate B. Wasson Realty in Riverhead. She then married Frederick Fechtig, M.D., who practiced family medicine on the North Fork. She was a long-standing member of Church of the Redeemer in Mattituck, North Fork Country Club and the Riverhead Chamber of Commerce.

Ms. Fechtig moved to Crantham, N.H., in 1984 to escape hurricanes and to Albuquerque in 1998 to escape New England winters and live with her daughter and son-in-law.

She is survived by her children, Joyce Wasson Hamil of Albuquerque, John Hastings Wasson of Lebanon, N.H., and Wendy Wasson of Chicago, Ill., and two grandchildren.

Cremation was private. A memorial service will take place at a later date.