He didn’t make a big deal about it.
Heck, he may not have realized he was doing it, even, as it was just part of his nature.
Every Sunday morning for years at the old St. Theresa Roman Catholic parish in Morgantown, Fred Fawcett would saunter into the social hall — to perform a little act of amazing grace.
The church down the hill from WVU’s main Morgantown campus was known for its “Sarah’s Table” food ministry.
Parishioners would put together a hearty, scrambled egg breakfast for the University City’s less fortunate, and Fawcett would show up for a serving.
His appearance, though, came with a rock-solid, pre-breakfast caveat: Before he would eat, he would work.
Fawcett would say his hellos, calling volunteers by their names, and advance directly to the kitchen.
“Need any help? What can I do?”
He would take meals to the tables, stir the eggs and pour the juice until the last person to enter the hall from the outside was seated.
Only then would he sit down with his plate.
And when he was done, he’d spring back up for the cleanup.
The way he saw it, a bunch of good people were doing something nice for him by providing the most important meal of the day.
And he was going to answer the overture.
Fred makes it his, with lots of help
The man known by many as Morgantown’s “official ambassador,” died last Friday at the Mapleshire nursing facility of complications from congestive heart failure. He had also battled colon cancer.
If you grew up here or have lived here over the past 20 years, you saw him, somewhere, in town, straddling his patented bicycle with the trailer in the back.
You knew him — even if you didn’t.
His bike helmet would be perched on his head, with the sunglasses balanced on top of that.
If it was the Fourth of July, he’d be wearing a red, white and blue shirt.
Whatever the event, he’d be there, volunteering, in some way.
Fawcett would ride in the parade — then pick up after it. Two years ago, organizers even named him marshal of the Morgantown Jaycees Christmas parade.
He would drive nails for Habitat for Humanity houses, while helping winterize other homes occupied by elderly who could no longer scoot up ladders.
Along the way, he climbed his own ladder with his longtime friend, Mike George, who went back with him 50 years.
“Fred had a lot of people watching out for him,” said George, an area businessman who served as a conservator, of sorts, for Fawcett.
John Fawcett, Fred’s father, died when he was young. A monthly Social Security check didn’t do much, but it was still something.
George was enlisted to be the cost-ledger compadre, because of a connected friend of Fawcett’s said he should.
Nothing to it, George said, chuckling.
Fawcett was born in 1952 in Bruceton Mills. Eight children and not enough money.
The third of John and Daisy Fawcett’s brood was also born with cognitive impairments, which meant no career, and likely no job of any kind, either.
There was a minor run-in with the law as a young man, that, relatively speaking, wasn’t that serious — and a bout with drinking that most definitely was.
Fawcett pulled through, because a lot of people — connected, as said — were pulling for him.
Their ranks included mayors, councilors, social workers, lawyers. Anyone who watched Fawcett work.
“People liked him,” George said.
“And he paid that back, by doing for others. He became a trusted member of the community.”
Friends for life
Eleanor Green, the Monongalia County educator and social activist, met Fawcett 30 years ago when she was a WVU student and he was trying to self-educate himself in the Mountainlair.
“I was touched by that,” she said.
She graduated, married and moved from Morgantown. When she and her husband came back to raise their kids in her hometown, they reconnected.
Fawcett was often a guest at the Green family home, for Christmas, Thanksgiving and other holidays. She talked to him on the phone the evening before he died.
He’ll be buried next to his parents, in Kingwood’s Maplewood Cemetery.
Once COVID-19 calms, a public service will be held.
It will likely be in Morgantown, Green said. She expects a good showing from what she calls, “the Community of Fred.”
Green appreciates that she wasn’t the only friend in his life.
“People watched out for him,” she said. “A community should do that. That’s why I love Morgantown.”
Fawcett, in turn, was moved by Green’s friendship.
Weeks back, as his health was failing, a medical checkup turned into a hospital admission — and the 12-hour day that went with it.
Green was there for the ailing city ambassador.
“You’ve been with me all day. The whole time.”
“I’m not leaving you by yourself, buddy.”
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