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Betty Good Nolan & Marilyn Good Stangle

Selkirk, NY

1947 & 1944

Interviewed at Betty’s residence on October 7, 2024, by Eric Bryant w/ Bill Ketzer & Tim Beebe present.

Betty and Marilyn are the daughters of vegetable, nursery and row crop farmers John R. Good (1916-1970) and Agnes Mary Magdeline Merges Good (1915-1998), who moved from the City of Albany to Bethlehem in 1951. In that era, Selkirk (and any part of town outside Bethlehem’s Tri-Village area) was still a straight-cut rural community. They grew vegetables, fruit and nursery goods like Christmas trees directly to the public through the 1950s and well into the 1960s.

John’s parents were Polish (his given surname was “Gudz”) and came to NYC in 1912 from Austria, prior to WW1 resolving border disputes between Poland & Austria. By 1925 John’s father was working for the NY Central Railroad at Selkirk Yard, and the family had relocated to Clarksville to farm while he and his siblings were still fairly young.

Agnes, however, grew up in Albany’s South End. Her parents George (1874-1941) and Margaret (1876-1967) were from Germany, with both sets of grandparents arriving in Albany around 1866, at a time when many Germans emigrated to the U.S. looking to escape poverty and political uncertainty in their homeland. Her father was one of nine children and was a grocer for many years.  The family attended the Our Lady Help of Christians church on 2nd Avenue and the church’s cemetery was established in Glenmont in 1874.

After graduating from Mildred Elly Business School during the Depression, Agnes worked for National Commercial Bank & Trust Company, breaking ground as the first female teller in the bank’s 250-year history. After more than 15 years in that role, she eventually transitioned into real estate in both Bethlehem and Coeymans and built a reputation that would last a lifetime. She kept her married name to coin her creative “A. Good Realty” calling card and also managed her own appreciable portfolio of land holdings. In addition, she was far ahead of the curve on renewable energy, as the owner of the first privately-funded solar home in New York State in 1983.

It’s no surprise, then, that Agnes’s daughters inherited her forward-thinking, community-building mindset and applied it to land conservation. In November 2024, the Town of Bethlehem’s Farms & Forests Conservation Program entered into a partnership with the sisters to protect a 68-acre portion of their property near the intersection of Maple Avenue and Beaver Dam Road in Selkirk.

Their goal was to ensure that the fields and woodlands of their family farm – maintained and enjoyed for over 70 years – remain undeveloped and accessible to the public, with walking trails and wildlife viewing areas in the offing. This vision appealed to town leaders, who in the past six years alone have helped conserve more than 600 acres of open space within town borders.

This partnership/collaboration includes not only the Town of Bethlehem, but also the Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy, Selkirk Fire Department, and the nearby Albertus W. Becker Elementary School, where there is another connection to the family. Betty’s daughter, Debra Neubart, who attended Becker as a child, recently retired from the school after serving as its principal for 7-8 years.

We hope you like hearing the recollections of these two long-time Selkirk sisters as they walk us through the life and times of their family. Enjoy!

Editor’s Note: The video footage on this page was shot on location at Betty’s home, which abuts the new town preserve. Marilyn, who now lives in South Bethlehem in a beautiful 19th century farmhouse, agreed to appear with her sister but respectfully declined to be filmed. So you’ll hear her weighing in from the margins with memories of her own.

Family Photos