Cecelia M. Shafer

Shafer, Cecelia Cecelia (Ceil) M Shafer passed away on Tuesday, March 11, 2014 at the Daughters of Sarah Nursing Center in Albany, New York. Born September 8, 1924, she was the youngest child and only daughter of Paul and Josephine (Pogroszewski) Bieleski. She was raised in Mont Pleasant, Schenectady where she attended St. Adalbert School and St. Joseph’s Academy. Following her graduation from high school, she worked briefly for the phone company and then took a job at the Amsterdam Dairy. It was there that she met Howard W Shafer, the man she would marry and characterize as her soul mate. They wed on September 19, 1943 and moved to his home with the red and white striped barn on Township Road in the town of Knox. Although raised in the city, she came to love sharing life in the country with him and was devastated when he died in January, 2000. She remained on the farm until declining health necessitated that she move to Atria Guilderland Senior Living Facility in the fall of 2008. When her condition deteriorated in 2010, she became a resident at the nursing center. Ceil’s life was about people: her children and grandchildren and the acquaintances that she made through them, the friends that she acquired during the many years that she worked at the Altamont Supermarket or encountered through her association with St. Lucy’s Church and the Knox Volunteer Fire Company Ladies Auxiliary, as well as the families who employed her after the grocery store closed, to name just a few. Her sweet smile and talkative manner combined with her habit for committing random acts of kindness endeared her to those whose lives she touched, no matter how briefly. She was a loving mother to Howard A Shafer and his wife, Susan (Giebitz) of Selkirk, Roger Shafer and his wife, Luanne (Webert) of Monroe (Orange County) and Dawn Shafer of Albany. She will be remembered as a devoted grandmother by Cherie Shafer (Scott) Hornsby of Shaker Heights, Ohio; Michael (Tiffany Leam) Shafer of Schenectady, Jessyca (Christopher Snellinger) Shafer of Albany and Hillari, Maryssa and Jakob Patschureck of Albany. She was the great-grandmother of Sloane and Ivy Hornsby and Jennifer Shafer. She is also survived by her brother-in-law, Raymond Shafer, her sisters-in-law, Shirley Shafer and Corinne Blake and several nieces and nephews. In addition to her parents and husband, she was pre-deceased by her brothers: John, Casimir, Peter, Chester and Bernard Bieleski and August Blake. A service to celebrate her life will be held at 10:30 am, Saturday, March 15 at the Fredendall Funeral Home, 199 Main Street, Altamont. Friends and family are invited to call at the funeral home between 5 and 8 pm on Friday, March 14. Interment will be in Memory Gardens, Albany. Memorial contributions may be made to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, 501 St Jude Place, Memphis, TN 38105.