Gov. Ned Lamont and former U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd are among the eulogists scheduled to speak Monday at the funeral of Connecticut’s last Republican senator and its third-party governor, Lowell P. Weicker Jr.
The public services will be held at 10:30 a.m. at St. Barnabas Church, an Episcopal church in Greenwich on Lake Avenue, the same road where Weicker and his wife, Claudia, were living when he was elected governor in 1990.
Weicker, 92, of Old Lyme, died on June 28, a day after entering hospice care at Middlesex Hospital.
Two of Weicker’s sons, Scot and Gray, and Stanley A. Twardy, the senatorial and gubernatorial aide who became a lifelong friend, also are expected to speak. Twardy was Weicker’s gubernatorial chief of staff.
While Weicker settled in retirement in Old Lyme, his career was launched and ended while he lived in Greenwich.
He served the community as first selectman and a state representative before his election to Congress in 1968. And it was in Greenwich where he announced in 1993 he would not seek a second term as governor.
Lamont and Dodd are Democrats who developed friendships with Weicker, who left the Republican Party to run for governor in 1990. In the small world of Connecticut politics, the trio had several connections.
The Senate careers of Dodd and Weicker overlapped for eight years: Dodd, a three-term House member, was elected to the Senate in 1980; Weicker was denied a fourth Senate term in 1988, losing to Joseph I. Lieberman.
Weicker succeeded Dodd’s father, Thomas J. Dodd, in the Senate. The elder Dodd, a Democrat, had sought reelection as an independent in 1970, creating a three-way race won by Weicker with 41.7% of the vote.
With Weicker’s support, Lamont ran as an anti-war candidate for U.S. Senate in 2006, opposing Lieberman, the man who dealt Weicker his one electoral defeat by running to his right.
Lamont won the Democratic primary, capitalizing on sentiment against the war in Iraq and Lieberman’s support for George W. Bush, the Republican president who ordered the invasion in the mistaken belief Iraq was harboring weapons of mass destruction.
But Lieberman won the general election as a third-party candidate, although he lacked a political base to seek reelection in 2012.
Lamont, Dodd and Twardy visited Weicker at his home in Old Lyme in recent months.
The church where Weicker’s life will be celebrated has a capacity of 250, with an overflow room that can accommodate another 100. Burial will be in Putnam Cemetery in Greenwich.
There are no visiting hours.
In addition to his wife and sons Scot and Gray, Weicker is survived by sons Brian, Tre and Sonny Weicker; his stepsons Mason and Andrew Ingram; and 12 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to either Special Olympics Connecticut or the Lowell Weicker Memorial Fund at the Connecticut Audubon Society.