Focus: Ending Ruth Blaser’s Love Story in Her Fair Haven

Once upon a time, a gladly landed in a little peninsula borough in New Jersey called Fair Haven.

The fashion plate of a fly raised her four boys as a single divorcee, as they called it back then, clipping hedges in hot pants in front of her “5-2-3 River Road” (as she said it) home, offering unsolicited opinions, advice and trinkets to neighbors, rallying and creating helping hand groups, and relentlessly buzzing around at borough meetings, never getting squashed by anyone, swats always missing with a loud, succinct “I don’t think so!”

Hand always raised with a proud “Ruth Blaser, 5-2-3 River Road” at the “good of the borough” section, this gadfly, rather dragon gadfly, a civic lesson wrapped in a striking blonde up-do, never missed a chance to defend the love of her life — Fair Haven — however her love-struck self saw fit.

Her son, Tom, told her not-so-secret secret. The unabashed truth about the avowed single lady, his mom, was that for a very long time, she was deeply in love with Fair Haven, knowing it also belonged to so many others. A shameless mistress, she was.

So, the Blaser family along with the Fair Havenites whose haven Ruth carried on a long love story of an affair with for decades gathered on Saturday at Bicentennial Hall in fitting tribute to the woman who stood by her borough until her very end.

They, for hours, raised their own hands and stood by Ruth Blaser, giving thanks to her for unapologetically falling in love with and carrying on a decades-long affair with their Fair Haven — the love of her life.

And in the audience a phantom hand was raised. “Ruth Blaser, 5-2-3 River Road. I would like to know why I am being called a mistress and a fly!” Mic drop.

Here’s a glimpse into the day of celebrating Ruth Blaser’s “illicit” Fair Haven love affair … (Be sure to click on one photo in the gallery to enlarge and scroll.)