Dwight Fay Koontz, approx 1920.

My first cousin, twice removed [that makes him my grandmother’s first cousin], Dwight Fay Koontz was born 124 years ago, 7 November 1895, in Minnesota, to Orrin DeForest and Cora Agnes Gnaga Koontz.  Fay was the second of five children born to his parents and third to his father who had a son by an earlier marriage.

He apparently really did not like the name Dwight as he was always called Fay, or it could have just been the old German tradition of using the middle name.  Fay married June Leona Prettyman on 20 August 1928.  The couple had three children, two boys and one girl.  The only child I have a record of  is the son DeForest.

Cousin Fay was an infrequent visitor to my grandparents’ home in Detroit.   I do remember meeting him on one of those visits where my grandmother was very excited to be seeing one of “her people”.

Fay’s wife, June passed away on 20 April 1979 and he followed soon after on 6 October 1979.