Leonard R. Jarek (“Lenny”), 82, part-time resident of Oak Bluffs and lifelong resident of Lowell, died Thursday, July 6, 2023, at Care Dimensions Hospice House in Lincoln, following a brief illness. He was the beloved husband of Donna M. (Zusin) Jarek, to whom he was married for 59 years, after they met as teenagers.
Lenny was born in Lowell in 1941, educated in Lowell public schools, graduated from Lowell Trade School, and had a long career as a very valued, talented, intuitive machinist. Beyond school and work, Lenny was self-taught in nearly everything he did, combining his curiosity for how things worked with natural engineering skills to build or fix just about anything.
In 1967, Lenny and Donna went to the Vineyard for the first time, and fell in love with the Island, starting a tradition of visits, including helping a relative to restore the historic Crystal Palace house on Pequot Avenue in Oak Bluffs. Their distant dream to one day own a home on the Island was fortunately fulfilled, building their sweet little house in Oak Bluffs in the mid-1980s. Lenny loved his Island home, spending annual time there with Donna, with the visits of their children and grandchildren being something he looked forward to every year. Among his many hobbies, beekeeping, gardening and mead- and winemaking were favorites — and he shared their products generously with family and friends. He recorded a daily weather journal for many decades, and every season tracked tropical storms on a chart, and could name just about any plant or flower. Along the way, he tended bees in O.B., also at Solviva Farm in West Tisbury, and at Vineyard Sound Herbs at Seven Gates Farm in Chilmark, occasionally selling honey, wax, and propolis to local merchants.
Lenny never wasted a moment, filling his life doing things and seeing places, “bee-friending” diverse people along the way. On summer evenings he liked to sit on the former brick wall at Healey Park on Circuit Avenue with the local regulars, catching up while endlessly people-watching. Any local construction projects happening were monitored by him daily, and he befriended the drawbridge engineers and operators during that rebuild.
Beyond enjoying the Island, Lenny and Donna loved to travel together, taking many road trips, including two cross-country road trips, and visiting over a dozen National Parks.
In addition to his wife, Lenny is survived by his daughter, Laurie J. Healey, and her husband Thomas of Franklin; his two sons, Mark L. Jarek, and his wife Lori Sylvia of Milford, and “Bart” S. Jarek of Oak Bluffs; and by four grandchildren, three brothers, his sister, and extended family.
Local donations in his memory may be provided to M.V. Community Services, 111 Edgartown Road, Vineyard Haven, MA 02568; or to the M.V. Community Foundation, P.O. Box 243, West Tisbury, MA 02575.
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