A former Calvert County resident who started a landmark business in Solomons was one of the thousands killed Jan. 12 in an earthquake that devastated Haiti.
In an account published in the St. Petersburg Times, Robert Olin Feister, 80 of Tierra Verde, FL, died in a Port-au-Prince hotel where he was staying.
Family members reported that Feister first visited Haiti in 1966 and fell in love with the country.
Former Calvert County Commissioner Pat Buehler of St. Leonard remembered Feister and his wife, Martha. The Feisters moved to Calvert during the early 1960s after purchasing Solomons Pier, where they ran the restaurant for several years.
“He bought Solomons Pier and a house across the street, which had a well,” said Buehler, who recalled Feister connected the well to the business to provide the restaurant with water.
Feister sold that business and took ownership of a local franchise that sold modular homes, said Buehler, who added two of his sisters bought homes from Feister. The business built one modular home per week for several years.
“I haven’t kept in touch with him since he left here,” said Buehler, who recalled Feister would frequently stop in Buehler’s Market when he lived in Calvert.
“He was a very nice man, he was a businessman,” said April Brown of Lusby.
“I knew him casually,” said Alton Kersey of Solomons.
It was Feister’s passion for the country of Haiti that prompted him to move to Florida. Martha Feister did not share her husband’s love for the quaint, impoverished nation, so they relocated to Florida as a compromise.
Feister bought a house in the mountains and learned to speak Creole. He ended up adopting a family of five after their mother died.
“He spent his life helping the people in Haiti,” said Buehler. “I know a lot of guys who went with him to Haiti.”
For what proved to be his last visit to Haiti, Feister had reportedly brought with him the usual supply of staples for the Haitians. This included food and toys for his adopted children.
According to the St. Petersburg Times, an American doctor who knew the owner of the hotel guesthouse where Feister had been staying, told the family Feister had been buried in a mass grave.
“At least he ended up where he wanted to be, doing what he wanted to do,” Martha Feister stated.
E-mail Marty Madden at editorial@calvertindependent.com.
The Calvert Independent
