Editor Note: The Chestertown Spy and RiverArts have partnered in 2016 to share the art organization’s community arts project “Humans of Kent County,” designed to celebrate the wonderful, unique folks who live and work in Kent County. Citizens are invited to interview and photograph from young to old from all corners of the county and to submit a photograph and brief story to be part of the project. It will be posted on the Spy each week and each quarter the most interesting photos and stories will be enlarged and produced for an exhibition at the RiverArts gallery in Chestertown. For more Information, please go here.
Michael Sipala
What makes you proud to be here?
My family heritage and the fact that it’s such a wonderful place to live and raise a family. Couldn’t be any better, not as good as when I was a child… but it’s still, in my opinion, one of the best places you can come to raise a family.
And how many children did you raise here? I have four children. One girl, three boys.
Did they stay in the area?
Two children are still in the county and two live in the Washington, D.C. area.
Do you have any grandkids?
I have one grandchild.
Tell me about your heritage…
My mother’s family is a very old family from the community, her mother’s maiden name was Fowler. My mothers maiden name was Anderson. Andersons were not born here but migrated here from the Delaware area a hundred and fifty years ago I guess. My father is Sicilian and he came here from Sicily in 1926 I think it was.
Were they farmers?
The Fowlers were farmers, the Andersons were carpenters but I had two uncles that were farmers…Grain farmers….My dad was a shoemaker.
Photographed and Interviewed by Sherrie von Sternberg
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