OBITUARY: Beloved Long Island Snowman

A beloved Massapequa Park snowman, who survived the first month of spring with the help of donors miles away, has died from complications associated with rain and warming weather. He was an elderly 3 months old.

The famed snowman, known around the tri-state and beyond for bringing smiles to so many faces, succumbed to the elements Monday afternoon, according to the Save the Snowman Facebook page.

Before his thaw, the snowman became an international sensation thanks to social media and local news coverage.

“I’ve had old friends I haven’t seen in years tell me they saw the snowman on the news in Colorado and the Florida Keys,” said Mike Fregoe, who built the snowman with his family. “I even heard we were spotted on Polish television and a station in Burma.”

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Fregoe set up the Save the Snowman Facebook page, which now has more than 3,000 followers and hosts photos of the snowman’s “travels” around Manhattan. He happily posed in front of the Statue of Liberty, took a bus tour around the city, and stopped by The Tonight Show and The Late Show.

As temperatures began to climb, donors from across the region delivered buckets of snow transplants to keep the snowman alive. Some hauled snow from the North Shore, the Hamptons, and even Vermont. Fregoe said he made sure the snowman lived an organic lifestyle and used no artificial snow in his makeup.

Sadly, climbing temperatures and lethal spring rain finally took their toll. The Fregoe family called the time of death at 2:16 p.m. Monday, shortly before his three-month birthday, following a particularly warm and rainy weekend.

The 2015 snowman’s legacy will surely live on in the smiles he brought to so many faces around the world.

“It was such a horrible winter and the snow was aggravating everyone,” Fregoe said. “We always built big snowmen every year and it always made people laugh as they went by.”

While the community is sad to see him go, the Fregoes assured them the snowman’s regenerative powers would ensure he would be back next year.

While no formal services are planned, an eternal rememberance, in the form of a ball of snow, has been preserved in the Fregoe family’s freezer.

Survivors, thankfully, include not a speck of snow, not even those little blackening crystals that seem to live well past their welcome on Long Island’s curbsides and areas of shade.

Photos via Facebook/Save the Snowman

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