Main     Gavin Park     Maple Avenue     Fire Company Schools     Dorothy Nolan     Ballard Road     Other Schools	Extended Family get Together The Petteys/Varney family reunion in Gavin Park.
	On August 18th, Ken Petteys attended a get together with his children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, nieces, nephews, cousins, and their relatives by marriage.     In all, there were about 174 people attending the reunion, including Ken Petteys, who at 9597() years was very excited and somewhat surprised at how many people were there.     The get together was conceived and planed through by Kens two Nieces, Sandy Arnold and Donna Spawn. They were also somewhat surprised by how their small project had grown.     A note to all members of the Petteys/Varney family, if you have any other images you want us to add to the online collection, or if you want to send us some additional information, we will happily add it to the page. Please send your addition to brendan@wiltonnewyork.com     Our commendment to Gavin Park for hosting this reunion.
	Additional comments: From Sandy Arnold Thank you so much for the wonderful coverage of the Petteys/Varney Family Reunion on wiltonnewyork.com! And thank you for giving us the opportunity to add information and photos. We will forward some additional photos soon, including a group photo. In the meantime, I would like to provide the following information: My mother (Marcy Arnold) and Donna Spawn's mother (Ruth Loveland) were also in attendance. They are Ken Petteys' sisters. Along with Ken, they are the surviving three (of ten) children of Frank and Hazel Mae (Varney) Petteys, who lived on Ballard Road. My mother (Marcy Arnold) is pictured in one of the photos on the web page. She is the lady in blue in the wheelchair. She had knee replacement surgery in July and felt lucky to have recuperated sufficiently to attend the reunion. People traveled from Long Island, Missouri, and Arizona just to be with us! Gayle (Petteys) Gavin was in attendance. We thought it appropriate to hold the family picnic at Gavin Park since it was named in honor of her late husband, Bob. David Petteys was on-hand with his laptop computer to add family members to his genealogy database. He also displayed a large pedigree chart that gave us the opportunity to learn more about our ancestors. Many family photos were on display, and information was shared on ancestors who fought in the Civil War. This was the first Petteys or Varney reunion that anyone can remember. We did not have contact information for everyone, so we asked people to pass the invitation on to their immediate family members. We invited second and third cousins, because the Wilton Petteys families were always close. Donna Spawn and I are indebted to the following family members for their assistance: Gary and Kevin Spawn, Barbara Paul, Gary Bernhardt, Curt and Roberta Petteys, and Trent Hofstra. If anyone has questions on this reunion, or are interested in participating in a future reunion, they are welcome to e-mail me at PetteysReunion@aol.com Thanks again! Kind Regards, Sandy Arnold From Sandy Arnold Thank you again for your photography and reporting skills covering our recent family reunion. A few notes on your article: My Grandfather, Ken Petteys, is currently 97 years old. Ken was born in Wilton on July 1, 1905. The wonderful picture you took and printed in the recent issue of the Wilton Reporter of Ken and two of his daughters incorrectly lists their names. The daughter on Ken's left is Carolyn Cook. The daughter on Ken's right is Audrey Ball. Despite the high temperatures everyone had a wonderful time. The food was excellent and the company was exceptional. Thank you to everyone in attendance and to the Arnold's and the Spawn's for pulling things together. What a great and memorable day it was! I'll attempt to attach a few group photographs. Sincerely, Tammy Emery     These Images courtosy of Sandy Arnold                                Addition from corrine petteys There is an internationally known artist. writer, standup comic, actress, cartoonist (multi-talented) member of the family that deserves particular recognition, and that is Corrine Petteys, who recently relocated from her home base of San Francisco, California where she has lived for 23 years (when not travelling, performing as a professional stand up comic, or exhibiting in another country as a painter) to Manhattan to attend the New Actor's Workshop with Mike Nichols, George Morrison and Paul Sils, three legendary men of film, Broadway, Second City (founders), TV, HBO, and together they not only launched the careers of many famous actors and comics, they changed the face of American Theatre. Corrine auditioned on August 31, 2001, for New Actor's, in San Francisco for Rebecca Stockley (one of the schools auditors) who is the director of the interantionally known and award winning improv group...Bay Area Theatre Sports or BATS...and Rebecca recommended Corrine for acceptance, and she was chosen one of 36 students they choose from 300 or 400 they audition from around the world yearly, and will begin her first year at New Actor's Workshop on October 8, the day after her 52nd birthday. But due to 9/11 Corrine was granted permission to defer for one year and was phoned personally by George Morrison to tell her it was OK. George Morrison has worked with many famous actors...Dustin Hoffman, Edie Falco (Sopranos), Stanley Tucci to name just a few. George Morrison was also thanked by Gene Hackman when he won his Oscar and again on the 100th interview from the Actor's Studio. And Mike Nichols needs no introduction. He just finished directing Al Pacino in the HBO film version of the Broadway hit...ANGELS IN AMERICA. Corrine has been an accomplished artist in many media for many years and has exhibited in San Francisco, Belize and Guatemala -- Central America as a painter. She is one of the first women cartoonists published in the American Underground comic scene. She was the first cartoonist published in New Mexico. From 1972 -1978 Santa Fe was her home and she got her start with a comic strip about her parents, Ethel and Stub Petteys, who were two befuddled tourists visiting Santa Fe, inspired from a visit they made in 1973. She drew for the Santa Fe Reporter which in those days won a Howard Scripps award for Journalism. She was also the first person to do performance art in Santa Fe. Corrine was famous in Santa Fe, and loved by the city. She was also an art director of Delgado Advertising in Santa Fe at the age of 21. She began her performing career young too, and would dress up as characters around Wilton to try to fool the neighbors, and she still has a revolving line of characters she invents...my favorite is "LOUISE" who is afraid of everything....one of her early Wilton characters was Madeline Morecalmer, who sold marinated popcorn salad door to door for the VFW. She did her in San Francisco too for certain parties. Corrine also built a beautiful artist's vacation house with the native village people of Chunox, Belize (in northern Belize) and has the only boat bathtub in the entire country of Belize which has been talked about on Belize radio! Corrine exhibited there in 1992 and gave of her spirit and talent to the entire country of Belize and was on all three TV stations and radio and newspaper. They still love her in Belize, and she is never forgotten. One year later almost to the day, she did another one woman show of oil paintings in the beautiful city of Antigua, Guatemala which at one time was the capitol of all of Central America. Standup comedy and acting has been her life long passion among her other many talents, and she has been an inspiration to all her friends and comic friends in the San Francisco comedy community, and Bay Area, and loving and generous and helpful to everyone. We love her and miss her and we sent her off with a comedy benefit party and all our love and support for her long overdue success in show business. Corrine has always over come hardships and survived an apartment fire, the death of her mother and 10 years of her father's Alzheimer's all one after another to rise from the ashes to a wonderful new life at the New Actor's Workshop and we wish her all the luck and success that she deserves. After all, how many people do you know who are adventure travellers who have been into the heart of Borneo by herself? YOU GO GIRL!!!! YOUR SAN FRANCISCO FRIENDS!!!!