Margaret Catherine Snedeker Ross O'Pecko

Margaret Catherine Snedeker Ross O'Pecko, Vandling, entered the afterlife on January 4, 2022, two days after her 96th birthday. She was married for 39 years to Michael Piech (“Mayor”) O’Pecko who died in 1983. Born in Richmondale to Ernest and Agnes (Ross) Snedeker on January 2nd, 1926, "Peggy" was adopted and raised from childhood by her grandmother, Katherine Ross.

Margaret, known as “Granny" to her extended family, spent much of her life with children in tow, including her own four children and her six grandchildren, along with their friends. In recent years, she welcomed seven great grandchildren into her life.

In her early married years, she was an active member of the Vandling community, known for volunteering at church, school, and neighborhood events, and often organizing collections for those in need.

Peg hosted dinners throughout the week and on Sundays for family members through her life and into her 90s, cooking a range of favorite dishes and special requests. She made sure that anyone who came into her home was well fed, sometimes overfed. Her cookies and potica were holiday favorites.

Spending her working years in the local garment industry, Peg was an accomplished seamstress. She made clothes for her family and others, and designed and sewed her daughter’s wedding dress. Knitting, crocheting, and quilting in her spare time, she made gifts of her handiwork to many family members and friends.

Throughout her life, Peg was a great reader. She read the newspaper daily and went through novels at a rapid pace.

Known for her wit and wry sense of humor, she had a group of friends and relatives with whom she maintained contact through cards, letters, and phone calls.

A woman of great faith, and for many years, a daily communicant, Peg said daily prayers for her loved ones and those in need. A loving wife, mother, and grandmother, Peg will be remembered for her generosity, loyalty, resourcefulness, and devotion.

In addition to her husband, she was preceded in death by her sister Alice Feddock, her brother Thomas Risboskin, and her companion later in life, George Basil.

Surviving her are her four married children, Michael (Dyer Bilgrave), James (Mary Ann), Mary Garm (Fred) and Paul (Bernadette); her grandchildren Elizabeth Cudo (Michael), Michael O’Pecko, Zachary Garm (Meaghan), Kate (Josh Mildon), Rachel, and Caroline O’Pecko; her great-grandchildren John Martin, Joseph Cudo, Liam and Henry O’Pecko, and Ethan, Charlotte, and Theodore Garm; and many cherished nieces and nephews.

The funeral will be Saturday January 8th with a Mass of Christian Burial at 10 am in St. Joseph’s Church, Ascension Parish, Delaware Street, Forest City.  Interment will follow in St. John’s Cemetery, Forest City.  All in attendance are asked to wear masks. A celebration of Margaret’s life will be held at a later time.  Arrangements by the Jones & Brennan Funeral Home, 430 Main Street, Forest City.

To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Margaret Catherine Snedeker Ross O'Pecko, please visit our floral store.