File:Lee (Leigh Rayne) Feete Schwertfeger.jpg

Summary

This is a 1958 BHS Railroader yearbook photo of Lee (Leigh Rayne) Feete Schwertfeger on her senior page. The daughter of Lee and Elva Feete, who were well known as proprietors of Feete’s Funeral Home (Now Williams) at the foot of West B Street, Lee was a beautiful, popular child, who was primarily recognized as a Brunswick Distinguished Citizen in 1992 for her activities as a youth in helping the less fortunate.

She was a renowned organizer, who helped create and raise large amounts of money for charitable events by tapping her father's local business connections. Most notably, she organized a successful carnival event for a woman in her Horse Club named Nellie Nichols, who had been stricken with Rheumatoid Arthritis. In the segregated Jim Crow era of the 1950s, she considered members of the local Black Community on nearby Wenner's Hill where she rode horses, her friends.

Lee later became active in Frederick County politics, including a role in 6th District Congressman Goodloe E. Byron's races. Following her mother's death in 1977, she came home to Brunswick to manage the family business until it was sold to the Williams family in 1980. During that time, she held memberships in the Brunswick Board of Trade and the Volunteer Fire Department Women's Auxillary.

After leaving Brunswick, she founded the Linden Beverage Company in Linden, VA where she lived on a farm with her husband and animals. She continued as an avid horsewoman into her retirement.

(Photo courtesy of Frank McKnight from the 1958 Railroader yearbook)