Amelia "Mel" Eva Kinney

KINNEY, MRS. AMELIA "MEL" E. Muskegon (formerly of Iron River, MI) Amelia "Mel" Eva Kinney, 89, passed away peacefully Friday, July 1, 2006 at McCauley Care Facility in Muskegon, Michigan, following a short illness. Mrs., Kinney was born December 25, 1916 in Lackawanna, New York, the second of four children born to Adam and Mary (Harbor) Scaritski (Skrczycki) after their arrival in the United States from Europe. The family lived briefly in Buffalo, N.Y. before moving to the Gaastra area (then Crystal Valley) in Iron County, Michigan, when Amelia and her siblings were young children. They first lived in the Palatka location where the children attended grade school then moved to Center Street in Gaastra where Amelia and her siblings attended Gaastra School before attending Stambaugh High School from which she was graduated in 1933. Her father Adam was a miner at the Kinney (later Zimmerman) mine until a fall down the shaft while setting timber ended his mining career and nearly his life. Amelia married Walter A. Kinney of Ice Lake on April 23, 1934. A highlight of her life was the blessing of that marriage by Father Hassenberg of St. Agnes Church on March 22, 1972. Amelia's cousins Stanley and Janice Kolbas stood up for them at the service. Walter preceded her in death on November 24, 1996. During their 63 years of marriage, the couple always lived in the vicinity of Ice Lake, including a couple of years at the base of "Ice Lake Hill" and for five years in a log cabin on the Kinney acreage on Ice Lake built for them by Walter's father Aaron. That house burned to the ground one evening in the winter of l939-40 as they visited her folks in Gaastra. In 1941, they purchased the Erick Johnson home on the "Stambaugh Cut-off" (road from Ice Lake to Stambaugh) which remains in the family today. Amelia lived there until she was 85 and an injury forced her to move to the Muskegon area to live near her son and his family. In her later years in Iron River she enjoyed her coffee meetings at the Plaza, Friday night fish fries with her special friends and annual family reunion get-togethers at the family camp near Beechwood. SURVIVORS Amelia was preceded in death by her husband Walter, a grandson Stephen Scott Kinney, who perished in a fire on Mackinac Island in September, 1989, her parents and a sister Dorothy Scaritski who died two months after birth. She is survived by a son Lowell "Mickey" Kinney and his wife Roxanne, grandchildren Kathy Lynn Suffel (Brian) and Rebecca Leigh Kinney (David Mathews), great grandson Ezekiel Stephen Kinney, all of Norton Shores, and step great grandchildren Phillip Mathews, of Ravenna, and Randee Mathews of Orlando, Florida. She is also survived by her sister Mary Dougovito of Manistique and Cedar River and her brother Bruno (Joyce) Scaritski of near Menominee, and a brother-in-law William Kinney of Ironton, MO, as well as a number of cherished nieces and nephews and great nieces and nephews and cousins. SERVICE A memorial service for family and friends is planned for Langenberg Funeral Home, Iron River, Michigan, at a date to be announced. MEMORIAL: In lieu of flowers, please consider contributions to St. Agnes Church or a church memorial fund of your choice.