Virginia McEwen - Dow
Byron, NY


Biography

After graduating in 1960, I graduated from RIT’s Executive Secretarial course. Worked at Kodak in the Traffic Department in Building 205 (Distribution Center). In 1965, I got married to Paul; and we’ve been married for 45 years this past June 26. We have two children—Steven, who is 42 years old and Kristine, who is 40 years old. Neither one is married (although Kris was married twice) and we have no grandchildren. We lived in Fairport for a couple of years then bought a home in Macedon. We lived there until 1975. Moved to Byron, NY where we’ve lived ever since. Paul worked at Xerox for a few years, hated it, and got an offer to come to Byron to work in the specialized harvesting equipment business. He bought into the business in 1976 and has been an owner ever since.

After Kodak (retired in 1968 to have my son), I was fortunate enough to be able to stay home with the kids. Then, when they were both in school, I worked part time for 20 years for Paul’s business doing payroll and other employee record keeping chores.

In 1990, we got into racing. Paul, Steve, and Kris all raced microsprints at Limerock Speedway in Caledonia. Then we graduated to the full sized sprint cars (the kids each had a race car). We joined the Empire Super Sprints and traveled all over the northeast. We had a Kenworth tractor trailer and a 48’ trailer to carry both cars and all the supporting equipment. That all was very time consuming and expensive but what a great experience! Steve had several feature wins, and Kris had one. She was the first female to win a race in ESS history.

We have traveled some. Took a trip to New Zealand with the kids. It was a combined business-vacation. Went to Hawaii twice (once with the children), and to St. Thomas with friends. This summer just before the reunion, my three brothers, Paul and I are going to Scotland. My dad was born there so we decided we needed to see where he came from since we are all in good health and the time is right. Neither Paul nor I are very interested in traveling the world.

We enjoy our home in Byron and have about 26 acres to call our own. Paul still is working, but is considering retirement within the next couple of years. He has so many projects at home to finish, so it’s high time he retired!

Best Regards to all.

Ginny