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09/12/2018 08:30 AMIf you speak the language of the Internet, you understand LOL: laughing out loud, or maybe lots of laughs, but in Chester, Lol means something entirely different. Lol is Lol Fearon. Actually, the name is a shortened form of Lawrence.
“A very British nickname,” explains Lol, who was born in Liverpool, but has spent his adult life in the United States.
Lol and his wife Charlene are co-chairs of the United Church of Chester’s upcoming house tour on Saturday, Sept. 29. The tour features five local residences as well as two structures with wider community use, Congregation Beth Shalom Rodfe Zedek and the Museum at the Mill, the headquarters of Chester Historical Society.
The current Beth Shalom synagogue building, to which the congregation moved in 2001 from its former home in Deep River, fuses the creativity of the late Sol LeWitt, noted artist and Chester resident; and architect Stephen Lloyd, who, at the time of the synagogue’s construction, also was a Chester resident.
The Museum at the Mill, an 1860s structure, has been home to the Chester Historical Society since 2010. Lol points out that there is a new exhibit installed in the spring for tour patrons to view at the museum: Two Streams, Many Industries.
“Even if people have been there before, this will be new,” he says.
In addition, the permanent exhibits on the second floor of the museum will be open to visitors.
Finding homes to feature on the tour takes time, “and a lot of energy to put together,” Lol says. “Each of the homes chosen has something unique, a head turner, a conversation piece.”
Among the head turners on the upcoming tour are a stained-glass panel and a cupboard that come from circus impresario P.T. Barnum’s Bridgeport home; a residence that features both a massive central chimney and preserved chestnut boards and beams; a house with a spectacular view of the Connecticut River along with a garage repurposed as a music room; a home that celebrates the possibilities of recycled materials; and finally a residence with an eye-catching sculpture on its front lawn
According to Lol, the house tour is about a lot more than homes.
“It’s truly a community event,” he says.
Local graphic artist Bob VanKeirsbilck of Long Cat Graphics designed posters and brochures for the tours; town historian Rob Miceli took the pictures that accompany the promotional material. Masonicare, the operator of Chester Village West, has provided a van to run a loop between three houses where parking is tight.
The funds that the tour raises will be used for the United Church’s Community Outreach Programs, including food and clothing drives and the backpack program that ensures weekend food for local school children as well as for the Chester Fuel Assistance program administered by the town’s Department of Social Services.
“We want to be more visible in the community,” Lol says of the church’s goal for using the funds that will be raised by the tour.
Beyond organizing the house tour, this is a time of transition for Lol. Following a long career in education as a teacher principal and administrator, he has just retired after 5 ½ years as superintendent of schools in Columbia, Connecticut. Better make that retired, sort of. He is now serving as interim superintendent in Columbia, but thinks he will be finished with that responsibility by the beginning of October, since a new superintendent has just been hired.
“I like being interim and helping with the transition; I don’t know if I could just go cold turkey,” he admits.
Lol first came to the United States as a university student on an exchange program that allowed him to work for two months in this country in the summer. He was much in demand when he returned to England because he brought the what was then the latest in American music with him, albums of Santana, Chicago, and psychedelic rock groups.
He returned to this country for a master’s degree in Education at Rhode Island College and started his career in Providence, Rhode Island teaching in elementary school and then running an early childhood education program. From 2000 to 2008, he was principal of Chester Elementary School, where Charlene, now retired, taught for 40 years.
He still sees local residents who were elementary school students during his tenure in Chester, some of whom still call him Mr. Fearon.
“I tell them they are now 40 years old and can call me Lol,” he says.
Though Lol says his English accent is no longer as strong as it used to be, he still remains committed to one thing from his English childhood—running. Lol, the oldest of five brothers, says the family was quite competitive.
“The school I went to, everybody did rugby or cross-country,” Lol says.
He started cross-country in school when he was 11.
In his 40s and 50s, Lol says he ran any distance from a 5K to, on one occasion, a marathon. He was a regular participant in the Chester Fourth of July Road Race in the decade from 1988 to 1998.
“I stopped when I was no longer as competitive,” he says, but in the days he ran Chester, he was a recurrent winner in the Master’s Division.
In those days, Lol says, he ran between 75 and 100 miles a week.
“In any weather,” he adds.
He still runs, six out of seven days, getting up somewhere between 5 and 5:30 a.m. to run familiar loops through Chester and Deep River. If you are out along his route, you won’t miss him.
“I wear vest, lights; I’m lit up like a Christmas tree,” he says.
On Sundays, he runs at Cockaponset State Forest where conditions are different than on a paved road. Over the years has fallen on slippery trails, crossed creeks in pouring rain, and run on the treacherous footing along the top of dams. He has suffered the cracked ribs and twisted ankles that go along with his trail-running challenges.
Last year Lol and Charlene moved from a house to an apartment in the center of Chester. Downsizing was a challenge, but Lol sees the compensations.
“We’ve learned to live with enjoyment of our surroundings as opposed to accumulating things,” he says.
And both he and Charlene like the activity and the centrality around their new location.
“On Sunday mornings in the summer, we can go out and see them putting together the Sunday market,” he says. “And we can walk everywhere.”
On the day of the upcoming house tour, Lol will start out at the parking lot of the United Church where the tour begins. He emphasizes that visitors do not have to follow the tour in numerical order, but can vary their routes, minimizing crowding at any one home.
He says that one of the delights of going on a house tour is seeing the inside of a house that is familiar only from the outside.
“I think it’s curiosity. People have driven by some of the places for ages and now they have a chance to see more of them,” he says.
And to be surprised by what they find.
If you only saw the outside, “you wouldn’t know the house had a stained-glass panel from P.T. Barnum’s house,” Lol points out.
United Church of Chester House Tour
Saturday, Sept. 29, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Tour starts at the United Church, 29 West Main Street, Chester
For more information, contact Sheila Robida at
srobida@comcast.net or Claudia Epright at cepright@truevine.net.
Tickets are available at:
Shops at the Mill House — 5 West Main Street, Chester
The Bowerbird — 46 Halls Road, Old Lyme, 860-434-3562
Emmy’s on Main — 45 Main Street, Essex, 860-767-7877
Celebrations — 161 Main Street, Deep River, 860-526-5134
and at the church, unitedchester@uccchester.org, 860-526-2697
Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 the day of the event.