Longtime Fair Havenite, Songbird Lillian Lauer: Still Hitting the High Notes at 90

Longtime Fair Havenite Lillian Lauer at 17 (left) and 90
Photos/courtesy of the Lauer family

Remember those days as a kid when you thought everyone over the age of 30 was ancient? That view from the pint-sized sprouters and adolescent awkward can offer both good and bad perspectives. Better these days, as a near senior (gulp), as it seems that those people we thought were ancient are, decades later, somehow ageless.

That’s the case with one Fair Haven mom and lead Church of the Nativity songstress: Lillian Lauer. The longtime striking blonde, French twist-coiffed Fair Havenite, who loved for decades to tend to her garden, children and lead soprano singing from the church mezzanine, turned 90 on Aug. 7. And, as the Jackson Browne song that was as popular as Lauer’s twist and song in the 70s goes, she’s “still the same … still aims high” in both song and youthful spirit.

There’s been a lot of icon mourning going on in the Rumson-Fair Haven area lately, most recently with the passing of Fair Haven crossing guard and mom to all, Dorothy Breckenridge, who had just turned 90, and gym teacher John Measely (his tribute is next) at 95. Yes, they lived full, long lives remembered by countless kids. But the insurmountable loss of those “ancient” folk looked up to in the 60s and 70s by so many kids can be a daunting reminder that time stands still for no one, not even an icon.

So, to spread a little happy tale of preservation celebration, we look to Lillian Lauer with another realization: that time actually does seem to stand still for some. No filter. OK, so the French twist is no longer blonde, but it’s silver, immovable as her agelessness and stunning to boot.

What’s her agelessness secret? Well, it may have something to do with the gift of song how she kept it locked away in her heart.

A Fair Haven resident for 37 years, from 1965 to 2002, Lauer came to the borough from Ashland, PA. One of 10 children, she grew up “deep in the heart of the Anthracite coal-mining region, where she and her siblings learned to sing and play their dad’s musical arrangements, even compete on the radio (WPPA Pottsville, PA) in 1948,” her son John, also a musician, told R-FH Retro.

Over the years, he added, she sang with many choral groups in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York City and New Jersey. Yet, after marrying her husband Jack, who passed away in 2011, and landing in Fair Haven, while raising children Kristin, John and Elizabeth, Lillian Lauer’s longest steady gig, besides being a mom, became the one she had for decades at Nativity. Anyone who was a parishioner or even visited the church remembers her high notes always hit and appearance always striking, signature twist never unraveled the teensiest bit.

Lillian Lauer isn’t all that far away now from what was her home for a very long time. She’s close by in Shrewsbury. And while she says she still misses nurturing her Fair Haven home and garden, she is happy to be thriving, happily still tending to her three children, now with six grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren in the growing mix.

So, when you’re feeling the sting of time’s fast-forward passage, look to Lillian Lauer, think a little 50s retro, a la Chubby Checkers, and “Come on, baby, let’s do the twist! It goes like this!”

French twist and shout “Happy 90th Birthday Mrs. Lauer!”