Na zdrowie! Proost, Adam and Tinie
Greenwood Lake. Adam and Tinie Filipowski, whose family lineage spans eight generations in Warwick, celebrate 70 years of marriage.
Warwick /
| 11 Jun 2020 | 03:39
Adam and Tinie Filipowski on their wedding day: June 11, 1950. Adam was 23 and just out of the Navy while Tinie was 20. Provided photos.
Adam and Tinie Filipowski share a toast.
The Filipowski family celebrating Tinie Filipowski’s 90th birthday last year: Standing from left to right are: Jen (Filipowski) Memmelaar, Matt Filipowski, Brian Filipowski, Mary Anne (Filipowski) Sander, Mark Filipowski, Roger Filipowski and Marty Filipowski; and sitting are: Peter Filipowski, Tinie Filipowski, Adam Filipowski and Dave Filipowski.
Adam and Tinie (Hagen) Filipowski, born and raised residents of Orange County, celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary on June 11th, 2020.
Their children describe them as simple people, raised with value of people, not material trappings.
Adam, a World War II Navy veteran, is a retired local business owner of the W.B. Phillips Agency, a real estate and insurance business in Greenwood Lake. Tinie was a valedictorian graduate of Goshen High School and awarded three scholarships to Barnard College, where she studied music, then math, then statistics.
The blind date
The two met on a blind date set up by Adam’s best friend, Roy Baldwin, and Tinie’s sister, Annie (Hagen) Baldwin. The four attended a basketball game at Goshen High School and they hit it off right away.
The first time they talked about their future together was on a concrete bench in a bower in a neighbor’s backyard on Golden Hill Avenue in Goshen. They also shared their first kiss there and that very bench is still there today.
“I gave Tinie her engagement ring at the top of the Empire State Building,” Adam recalled, “and we also made a recording that we still have.”
Father Fogarty married them at 2 p.m. on Sunday, June 11, 1950, in St. John’s Church in Goshen. It was a simple five-minute ceremony because they were only the second marriage performed in St. John’s Church instead of the rectory.
Their wedding was as humble as they come: Tinie wore an aqua suit with white blouse and white hat and white gloves and white shoes and white corsage.
Adam wore a gray gabardine suit.
The secrets to a happy marriage
Their secrets to a happy marriage were love, laughter, family and music. Before having nine children, the couple had their own Polish Polka band; Tinie played piano and Adam played the trumpet. They performed in and around Pine Island, Florida and Warwick.
The two have shared many laughs through the years, including the recollection of a certain pillow fight event.
“One thing we still laugh about was the pillow feathers all over the house after the kids had a pillow fight upstairs,” Tinie recalled. “They wafted down the stairs and ended up all over it took us hours in the middle of the night to clean it all up!”
Another time they remember “just laughing and laughing” during one of their famous “F-Troop” (that is what they call the whole gang) family camping trips.
“There was a foot of water around the picnic table at the campsite and the tarp was falling down in the wind,” Tinie said, “and the kids were sleeping through it!”
‘The goal I set ....’
They started from their very humble backgrounds on both sides as immigrant farming families.
Tinie (pronounced Tee-Knee) was born in the little grey building across from what is now Hacienda; her family were tenant farmers on the Hacienda property.
Adam’s grandfather moved to Pine Island from Poland in the mid-1800’s and his ancestors are all over the Pine Island, Warwick and Florida area.
“A goal I set,” Tinie said, “and hopefully I think I’ve reached was to be a wife and mother and have a big family and to do it the best I knew how and to bring up kids who would be content with their lot, do the best they could and contribute to society to make the world a better place to live in.”
Adam and Tinie did many things to improve the lives of those around them as well. Adam was on the Greenwood Lake Volunteer Ambulance Corps for decades. Tinie was a volunteer at the Arden Hill mental health unit for many years and the two of them delivered Meals on Wheels for more than 20 years.
The Filipowskis by the numbers
Adam and Tinie have definitely succeeded with many of the children, and now grandchildren making differences in the world we live in. They have come from and created a family lineage with much to be proud of and the legacy continues.
From their nine children, ranging in age from from 68 to 51, the two now have 17 grandchildren and 17 great grandchildren.
Adam and Tinie have lived in Newburgh, Monroe for many years and now Greenwood Lake where they currently reside.
Tinie and Adam said the following as their most prized possession: “The dearest people on this earth is our family”
Happy anniversary, Adam and Tinie! Na zdrowie! Proost!
Na zdrowie! Proost! is Polish for “to your health.”