The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Residents turn out to honor late principal
Students, community bid adieu to beloved educator
EAST HAMPTON » Friday’s wake for high school principal John H. Fidler was an effort to capture the totality of the man and a chance to savor his memory, even as hundreds of residents sought to comfort his family.
The ceremony was held in a darkened high school auditorium and featured both an abundance of floral tributes and the music of the Grateful Dead, a particular favorite of Fidler.
Residents began lining up in the corridor outside the auditorium before 3:30 p.m. in anticipation of the beginning of viewing hours at 4 p.m.
The line of mourners served to underscore the range of Fidler’s impact on the community.
Tie-dyed T-shirts mixed easily with suits and ties, as did men in casual shorts and young girls on the cusp of womanhood in dresses they wore with a mix of tentativeness and a conspicuous sense that they get this absolutely right for Fidler.
As mourners made their way up the front steps of the school, many of them paused to view a scaleddown memorial to Fidler. It did not have the abundance of raw emotion that was evident last Monday morning, created just hours after the community awoke to the shocking news of Fidler’s death while hiking in Maine on July 30.
There were flowers on Friday. But these were carefully trimmed and placed in large blue industrial buckets rather than the welter of individual bouquets that had fanned out from the front steps Monday.
Mixed in among the floral tributes were more personal, more emotional totems. Those included a grey bicycle helmet covered with tributes written in different hands with the same black marker; a varsity “E” (for East Hampton) letter, and small plastic basketball almost hidden by other tributes.
There were two T-shirts and, snuggled up to a podium on which sat a box of tissues, a framed tribute to the “Number One Bellringer: Always first in our hearts.”
Inside the front door was a hand-lettered poster taped to a wall. On three sides were written tributes: “educator and leader” up one side, “husband and father” across the top, and “son, brother and uncle” down the other side, and then in bold letters along the bottom, “friend.”
In the middle of the poster were memories — bike trips to Martha’s Vineyard,” and a list of Fidler’s qualities: “Good, kind, gentle, wise, humble.”
Next to the poster was a video screen, one of many placed throughout the building, displaying photographic images of Fidler’s life.
As the images slid by, it was possible to trace the arc of his life, from a pensive child in a black-and-white image getting a haircut through his First Communion and then on through a progression of schools he either attended or served in, onto his wedding and any number of photos of Fidler and his wife Joan and their two sons hiking, biking and in general enjoying the outdoors.
There were other photos of family celebrations, including one of an exuberant Fidler singing as he danced with a new bride, visits to Fenway Park, and suddenly
poignant images of three generations of Fidler men.
Three female teachers stood patiently in line viewing the images that flickered by. Several times they were moved to laugh or smile at photos of school ceremonies and of friends and/or colleagues.
Twice, they let out muted gasps of surprise, first at a picture of Fidler, a heavily bearded college student, playing a guitar, and then another of the same bearded giant playing Frisbee.
There was also a sobering photo of a chocolate frosted sheet cake marking Fidler’s 60th — and final — birthday.
Fidler was such an integral part of the school that even as they waited, mourners unconsciously expected him to come around a corner.
At 4 p.m., the doors of the were opened and the first mourners began filing in the darkened and chilled auditorium. Among the early mourners were former Board of Education Chairman Kenneth W. Barber and his wife Michele waiting in line with Sharon Smith, chairwoman of the School Building Committee.
Also present was former board member Donald J. Coolican.
After filing past an open casket — with a hiking pole resting against it — mourners met Fidler’s wife Joan, his two sons, Jack and Jeffrey, his parents, John and Nellie Fidler, and his sisters, Nancy, Tracy and Gretchen.
As they met each, mourners offered the family their condolences and what comfort they could.