Fuzzy Keeler, 91, farmer with roots

Nehemiah Lyman Keeler, a descendant of the town’s earliest settlers who had been one of Ridgefield’s last native farmers, died Thursday, April 7, 2005, in the place of his birth, the “Pink House” on Ridgebury Road. He was 91 years old and the husband of the late Janet Wixon Keeler.

Fuzzy Keeler, as most people knew him, had operated what was once the town’s largest dairy farm. While he left farming in 1961, he continued to work, most recently at the Parks and Recreation Center, until he was 90 years old. An avid motorcyclist all his life, he rode regularly until last summer.

“He gives you a flicker of what Ridgefield used to be, and the uncommon people that made it what it was -- in a word, a pleasure,” fellow Ridgeburian John Katz once said of him.

Mr. Keeler was born on Nov. 28, 1913, son of the late Lyman and Mabel Hartwell Keeler. His ancestors, Ralph and Samuel Keeler, were among the first settlers of Ridgefield and, later, its Ridgebury parish. The house in which he was born Ñ painted pink for as long as anyone can remember Ñ is one of the town’s oldest, dating from the early 1700s. It is believed to have been built by Jonah Keeler and has remained in the Keeler family for more than two and one-half centuries.

When he attended first through eighth grades in the one-room Ridgebury Schoolhouse at the corner of Ridgebury and Old Stagecoach roads, Mr. Keeler was known as a boy with an eye for the prank. He once filled a bag with leaves, climbed a ladder onto the school’s roof, and stuffed the bag in the chimney. When the teacher lit a fire in the stove, the entire schoolhouse filled with smoke.

“They closed school for two days for that one,” Mr. Keeler, a twinkle in his eye, recalled in a 2002 interview.

From northern Ridgebury, Danbury was two miles closer than Ridgefield center, and Mr. Keeler attended Danbury High School Ñ reached by horse and buggy.

After high school, he began working the family’s 124-acre dairy farm. “We were the biggest one -- milked around 40 head,” he said two years ago. “I sold milk to Stew Leonard for 15 years.”

Back when he was a boy, Ridgefield was mostly an agricultural community. “Every place was a farm, every place,” he said. “I remember when there wasn’t a car on the road, just horse and wagons.” He said occasionally a car might come along the dirt Ridgebury Road “and everybody’d run out to see and see who it was.”

“It’s like a city now,” he said two years ago. “I waited for 51 cars to go by my driveway the other day before I could get out.”

“But you can’t stop progress,” he added. “You got to keep going.”

By 1961, when Mr. Keeler was having difficulty finding enough good help to keep the farm going, he decided to sell most of the pastures, some 120 acres. Jerry Tuccio eventually acquired the property, turning it into the Pleasant View Estates subdivision. Keeler Drive there recalls the land’s past.

Over the next 30 years, Mr. Keeler held a variety of jobs, including car salesman, gun shop owner, assistant service manager for a Chrysler dealer, owner and operator of a trucking delivery business, and an auctioneer selling everything from cattle to go-carts.

In recent years he had worked at the Parks and Recreation Center, opening the building at 5:30 each morning -- the same time he used to milk the cows. He retired last year.

In the 1930s, Mr. Keeler began his lifelong interest in motorcycles, acquiring a four-cylinder Henderson. “His true love was motorcycle riding,” said his son, Peter. “He received many ‘oldest rider awards’ at rallies and rode up until the summer of 2004.”

He was also an avid hunter, gardener, and animal lover.

Mr. Keeler loved Ridgefield and had no inclination to leave. “I’ve been to Florida a few times, but I won’t go back,” he said in 2003. “It’s like a jungle down there with the heat and the noise. I said, ‘What the hell kind of place is this?’”

And while the farming community of his youth has disappeared, he accepted change. “There is nothing you can do about it,” he said a few years ago. “But it is good to think about the old times.”

Mr. Keeler is survived by his son, Peter L. Keeler and his wife, Lynn, of Ridgefield; his daughters, Polly K. Truzzolino and her husband John of Germany, and Penny K. LoValvo and her husband Ron of Danbury; and two granddaughters, Caitlin Keeler and Corrine LoValvo.

At his request, there were no services. “Instead, in his memory, take a long ride the first nice Sunday,” his family said.

Memorial contributions in his memory may be made to Regional Hospice of Western Connecticut, 405 Main Street, Danbury, CT 06810.

The Cornell Memorial Home was in charge of arrangements. To light a candle of hope and remembrance, visit www.CornellMemorial.com