NEW SCOTLAND — Robert W. Fuglein was a hard-working dairy farmer and a strict father, proud of his four children. He died on the farm he loved, now owned by his son.

“My husband always said, ‘I never seen a better spot,’” said Evelyn Irons Fuglein.

A steadfast man, Mr. Fuglein was married for 66 years and had served the same church for more than 60 years.

He died at his home on Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2016.  He was 90.

Mr. Fuglein was born in Voorheesville in 1926. His father was a sheet-metal worker and his mother was a homemaker, raising their four children. “She had a big garden,” said Mrs. Fuglein. “She’d pick raspberries and sell them. She did all the harvesting and canning.”

Mr. Fuglein’s oldest brother, Frank, drowned at age 13 when he was fishing in a creek behind their house; he had suffered seizures since being hit by a car, said Mrs. Fuglein.

In 1939, when Mr. Fuglein was 13, his grandmother bought a farm from his uncle, said Mrs. Fuglein. The farm is adjacent to the Ten Eycks’ Indian Ladder Farms. “Tygert Road runs between,” said Mrs. Fuglein.

At first, the farm had an apple orchard and then the family raised several hundred chickens, and then turkeys, said Mrs. Fuglein. “They had a few cows to make and sell butter. The Ten Eycks had a dairy and bottled the milk. The herdsman there said to get more cows and they would bottle the milk.”

Mr. Fuglein ended up with 50 cows that he milked both morning and evening.

“I thought it was a lot of hard work,” said Mrs. Fuglein, but her husband didn’t see it that way. “He said he never disliked it,” she said. “He liked the country.”

The Fugleins heated their home with wood. “He’d split the wood and carry it in,” said Mrs. Fuglein. He continued this strenuous work well into his eighties; he had to stop splitting wood four years ago when he developed a heart problem, she said.

The couple met at a square dance at Pat’s Ranch in Altamont. “His brother and he took my girlfriend and I home,” recalled his wife. “A week after, he called me for a date.”

They enjoyed square dancing for the rest of their lives. “He wouldn’t do it without me,” said Mrs. Fuglein. In 1975, the Fugleins took up Western square dancing with the Helderberg Twirlers. “We continued with the Elks and Does until 2009 when I broke my femur,” said Mrs. Fuglein.

Soon after they married, the Fugleins joined the New Scotland Presbyterian Church. Mr. Fuglein was recently given a certificate for being a 60-year member of the church. Over the years, he served the church as a deacon, an elder, and a trustee.

He regularly attended the church on Sundays with his family. “People would ask, ‘How do you get your four kids to behave?’ He pinched their knees — the kids and grandkids will tell you that,” said Mrs. Fuglein.

“He was a great father, very strict,” said Mrs. Fuglein. In recent years, she said, “We’d set here and say we must have done something right to have four great kids.”

Although he was strict, Mr. Fuglein was also caring, and devoted to his family.

“He took care of his mother for years,” said Mrs. Fuglein. “She was crippled with arthritis and had bad asthma.” Then, Mrs. Fuglein said, “After his father had a stroke, he lived with us.”

Although Mr. Fuglein worked very hard, his wife said, he still made time for fun. In addition to square dancing, Mr. Fuglein particularly liked bowling and playing cards.

“We played pinochle,” said his wife. “He learned when he was 5 years old when his parents went down to his grandparents.”

Was he good at pinochle? “Ask the people he played with at the senior center,” his wife answered. “One fellow said, ‘It’s no use playing with Bob. You can’t never win.’”

The Fuglein’s son got the couple to bowl. “One Christmas, our son took us out to dinner,” Mrs. Fuglein recalled, and bowling was part of the outing. “Bob had never bowled,” she said.

The couple joined the Punkintown Mix bowling club from New Salem and, when that club disbanded, the Fugleins bowled with the Senior League at Town ’N’ Country. “Bob was pretty good at it,” she said and he pursued the sport even though “he had to get back to milk the cows.”

One of his favorite sayings was, “You got to milk every day and twice on Sunday.”

In his later years, Mr. Fuglein enjoyed trips with the New Scotland Seniors on the town’s Yellow Bus. “He’d say, ‘You’re not signing me up.’ But, once he went, he loved it,” said his wife. “He was the biggest toad in the puddle.”

She also said, “He was very quiet. He never wanted to speak out at a meeting or draw attention to himself.”

Mrs. Fuglein said the key to their enduring marriage was patience. “Things get bad, but you don’t jump of the boat,” she advised.

“He enjoyed the grandchildren,” said Mrs. Fuglein, noting that she often babysat for them. “He made them mine,” she said with a chuckle.

After the couple sold the farm to their son, “He built a little house for us out of a three-car garage,” Mrs. Fuglein said. She added proudly, “We never pay a cent of rent…We couldn’t ask for better kids.”

Since her husband died, she said, “I haven’t cooked anything yet. They keep bringing me stuff.”

Members of their church and the New Scotland Senior Citizens have also been attentive to her needs, she said.

Describing her husband’s personality, Mrs. Fuglein concluded, “He was good and honest, and never had bad feelings about anyone.”

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In addition to his wife, Evelyn Irons Fuglein, Robert W. Fuglein is survived by his four children and their spouses, Robert E. Fuglein and his wife, Deborah, of Voorheesville, Ruth Von Haugg and her husband, Richard, of East Berne, Diane Bode and her husband, Frank, of Voorheesville, and Patricia Joyce and her husband, Daniel, of Voorheesville; his grandchildren, Courtney, Andrew, Michele, Meaghen, Bradley, David, Matthew, Jeffrey, Tara, Jonathan, and Mitchell; his nine great-grandchildren; and several nieces and nephews.

His siblings — Frank Fuglein Jr., Donald Fuglein, and Ruth Bauer Perry — died before him.

Funeral services were held on Monday, Nov. 28, at the New Scotland Presbyterian Church with burial in the New Scotland Cemetery. Arrangements were by Reilly & Son Funeral Home in Voorheesville.

Memorial contributions may be made to the New Scotland Presbyterian Church Building Fund, 2010 New Scotland Rd., Slingerlands, NY 12159.

— Melissa Hale-Spencer