Photos courtesy of the Fenimore family

By Steve Sears

Sometimes memories are uncovered in more than just photo albums. In fact, packed away for safe keeping may be items that will spark a recall, encourage a breath of amazement when the actual items are located after many years.

Just ask John Fenimore, who opened an old cedar hope chest while helping clear out his parent’s house in Netcong, and he was amazed at what he was looking at: two of his dad’s Roxbury High School football jerseys from the mid 1940s. One was gray, emblazoned with a bright yellow number 22, parts of the digits chewed away by age, and the second a bright yellow jersey with a blue number 50, parts of it torn by time or, perhaps, gridiron battle from 75 years ago.

Except for the early part of the decade, the 1940s weren’t kind to Roxbury Gael football. Still, that didn’t stop Guilio Fenimore from packing away with pride the upper part of the uniforms he wore from 1944 until 1946.

Fenimore is now 93, his wife, Emma, 94. Both, still living in the Netcong home they had built in 1950, had decided the time had come to start cleaning it out. It led their son to a storage area in the house and to the chest, which was an engagement gift for his mom. 

“It’s basically an old cedar chest,” says Fenimore, who when finding the jerseys posted a photo of each to an enthusiastic response on the “Roxbury Football 100 Years” Facebook page. “So, anyway, she (his mom) wanted me to move that out of there down to the garage, which has kind of become a storage area. I found the jerseys in there. I have no idea how long they’ve been in there,” he says with a chuckle. “One thing I noticed was how small they were, and they’re very heavy as well.” 

Guilio, who served as captain in his last year at the school, was a pulling guard in the single-wing Roxbury offensive formation. When Roxbury football held a 100th anniversary celebration in 2012, the elder Fenimore was the lone 1940s representative. Always a football lover, he kept the sideline chains at the Lenape Valley High School football games until 2011, and was a regular attendee with his daughter, Fran, at Rutgers Scarlet Knights Big East and Big Ten contests at S H I Stadium in New Brunswick until 2018.

Guilio’s brother Mike, who died in 2019, also was a Roxbury Gael gridironer in the mid 1940’s as well. Emma Fenimore attended Hackettstown High School while her future husband was at Roxbury. Both met at a dance at the Wigwam restaurant and dance hall in Budd Lake. The couple, wed in 1948, celebrated a 73rd wedding anniversary in 2021.

Guilio Fenimore does have photos and newspaper clippings from his high school football days, and when his son brought the uniforms to his dad, he remembered them fondly. 

Indeed, they are all cherished items.