Bill and Kathie (Mack) Quackenbush
It is an honor for the Greenville Local History Group to bestow its 2023 recognition to William III and Kathleen Quackenbush,
Back in 1949, the family of Bill Jr & Dot Quackenbush moved to Greenville, thus marking a three-quarter century legacy still felt today.
Five children – Bill, Ed, Mike, Mary & Dan – came with the move to Greenville. Five more – Judy, Joe, Mark, Bernadette & Matt – were born while the family lived in Greenville.
The oldest of the ten children, Bill was born in 1943 and attended GCS through 8th grade. After two years at Christian Brothers Academy in Albany, he returned to Greenville, graduating in 1961 and was president of his senior class. He graduated from Albany College of Pharmacy in 1966 with a degree in pharmacy. After serving a one year pharmacy apprenticeship in Bristol, VT, he returned to his father’s pharmacy on Main Street, Greenville in 1967.
Meanwhile, Kathie Mack was born in Albany in 1944, the second of four children of Ed and Catherine (McArdle) Mack. She graduated from Cardinal McCloskey in 1962 and from Albany College of Pharmacy in 1966 where she met her future husband. Kathie and Bill married in 1968. (Their mothers had graduated together in 1933 from St. Joseph’s Academy in Albany!)
Bill and Kathie have three children: William IV (m. Carrie Brezzo, son Liam); Kerry (m. Eoin Connolly, daughter Maeve, sons Cian and Cael); and Katie (m. Chris Mcgahey, daughters Claire and Molly). Will, Kerry and Katie are all GCS grads and all went on to higher education.
Bill became the Supervising Pharmacist at the Greenville Pharmacy on Main Street in 1967 and, with his father, oversaw the move to Bryant’s Country Square in the mid-1970s. When Bill’s father became ill in 1978, Kathie joined temporarily for clerking and organizational duties. She stayed for thirty years! Bill’s brother Mark was a senior at Albany College of Pharmacy in 1979 when Bill Jr died; he joined after graduation. And then Mark’s wife LuAnn (Von Atzingen) joined the family business after her parents’ business, Von’s Dept Store, closed, offering her keen business acumen and rich people skills..
The Greenville Pharmacy, aka Quackenbush’s, served Greenville as a health center, supplier of goods, friendly ear, and a crossroads where snippets and crosscurrents of news and social glue were exchanged. Their business value was recognized by I.P.C. - an independent pharmacy cooperative, 4000 pharmacies strong - with its Most Valuable Pharmacy Award in 2010; Merck Lab’s – Bowl of Hygeia Award in 1985; and Drug Topic Magazine’s – Outstanding Pharmacy Award in 1987 .
In the 1980s, new opportunities arose. The Quackenbushes bought the Windham Pharmacy from the Wakefield Family, started Northeast Home Care, a supplier of durable medical equipment and oxygen, and then Greene Medical Arts Pharmacy in Catskill.
Through it all, Bill III’s baritone voice was a calming voice of reason, hope, comfort, and consolation during all these years. The selling of the Pharmacy to Rite-Aid in 1999 was the end of a 50 year chapter in Greenville, a difficult, but necessary decision for the Quackenbushes.
However, GLHG proffers its recognition not only for the Quackenbush business skill but more so for the service and heart they gave and instilled to the Greenville community.
Both Kathie and Bill are/were active in the Catholic Church in different roles and different parishes in Greenville and Albany. And they supported the activities their children participated in: Cubs Scouts, Boys Scouts, athletic teams, clubs, and extracurricular activities. They especially supported the GCS music department, serving as chaperones to Boston, Nashville, Toronto and Europe, as well as fund-raisers for the gazebo.
Bill also:
· served on the Columbia-Greene Memorial Hospital Board of Trustees
· served as a Stiefel Laboratories – Durham Pharmaceutical Division Board Member
· served as Treasurer of Greene County Rural Health Network
· served in St John’s in Greenville and St. Vincent’s Parish in Albany in various liturgical ministries and administrative roles as Parish Council President and Parish Trustee.
· Actively involved in prison ministry (Residents Encounter Christ) for over 20 years
· Co-managed many Greenville Little League Baseball teams
· Supported his alma mater - GCS
Kathie also:
· taught religious ed classes and served as Eucharistic minister
· was involved in the classroom activities of their children
· served as a Greenville Library Board of Trustee
· supports the Friends of the Library.
One of their comments attests to the friendship between Greenville and the Quackenbushes:
“We were indeed a family business but we had lots of wonderful local folks of many backgrounds join us. We enjoyed so many students, some went on to become pharmacists.
“Our rewards were doing what we loved to do for the people from the greater Greenville area. The biggest reward of all has been living with and in this marvelous place.”
photos courtesy of Kathie and Bill Q