Date: Fri 03-Jul-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: SUZANN

Quick Words:

Kansas-Schmidt-LaBeau

Full Text:

A Friendship That Was Meant To Be

(with cut)

BY SUZANNA NYBERG

Ah, destiny.

The search for a new home brought Kansas native Fawn Schmidt to Newtown.

Another search brought fellow Kansan, Dorothy LaBeau, and the lives of the two

women have paralleled each other's in extraordinary ways.

Their story has a touch of the unreal. Fawn and Dorothy met at a Christmas

Co-op Craft House in Kansas in December of 1994 and almost immediately became

friends. Fawn does applique and made an applique flag for Dorothy's husband's

company, and Dorothy, who sells Longaberger baskets, held a basket party at

Fawn's house. When Dorothy and her family suddenly moved to Chicago in 1996,

Fawn feared that the relationship was winding down.

Instead of ending, the two friends are now back together and closer than ever

in Newtown.

In May, 1997 Fawn and her husband, Dwayne, a commodities analyst with Louis

Dreyfuss, were suddenly transferred back to Connecticut. In the early 1990s

they had lived for three years in Bethel. That June they looked at homes and

even put a bid on a house. While flying back to Kansas on July 4, Fawn spotted

Dorothy with two of her children at an eatery at LaGuardia Airport. Dorothy

and her family had just purchased a home in Newtown. Her husband, Tim, an

executive with Benckiser, had also been transferred back East. "There was the

shock of recognition," said Fawn. "And then back and forth screaming, where,

where, where." But the exigencies of flight departures cut short this dramatic

conversation.

Now, Dorothy and Fawn live five minutes from each other, participate in the

same couples group, play softball in the same league, albeit on different

teams, and their children, Fawn's four boys, Taggart, Tanner, Taylor, and

Tucker, and Dorothy's three boys, Larson, Chase, and Colin visit each other's

houses for play.

"This is most awesome," said Fawn. "It was meant to be."