John F. Lambert, 46; owned fruit company with family
John F. Lambert, part-owner of Lambert's Rainbow Fruit Company and manager of the company's main market in Westwood, died June 30 at Charlton Memorial Hospital in Fall River.
Though the quiet one in the business partnership he shared with two cousins and two brothers, he kept a fatherly watch over each, making sure everyone was provided for.
He was the type of guy men would call loyal and women would call handsome, his family said.
Outside of work, he traded work boots for either suits that complemented his good looks or for the prized
"He had very little to say, but he would walk in the room, and everyone would gravitate to him," said his brother George Jr. of Milton. "You either loved John or you didn't know him."
Mr. Lambert was born in Boston and grew up in Dorchester. At age 12, he started working at the popular string of fruit and vegetable markets his father, George Sr., and uncle, Billy, started in the 1950s.
After graduating from Xaverian Brothers High School in Westwood in 1979, he joined the company full time. Eventually, Mr. Lambert, his brothers George and Nino, and their cousins Billy and Danny assumed ownership. They continued to grow the company, opening additional stores and introducing garden centers, delis, and meat markets, Pamela said.
True to the company's hands-on roots, Mr. Lambert was a fixture in the store on Route 1 in Westwood, taking care of whatever job needed doing - whether it was making a pastrami sandwich, stacking peaches, or unloading trucks, his brother George said. He was not the type to miss a day of work, as he had joked with his wife the day before he died.
"He was a very type-A personality, very organized," his wife said. "I used to tell him, 'You need to slow down.' "
Mr. Lambert was constantly on the move at home, too. He taught his children to fish and garden, and donated food to their schools and community events at every opportunity.
Recently, his wife and youngest daughter, Dakota, of North Dartmouth, joked that it would be fun to have a corn maze in the yard for the annual Halloween party, and Pamela returned home one day during the recent heat wave to find the avid gardener planting the front yard - with corn and pumpkins. She was shocked, she said.
"He thought, 'She wants a corn field, she's going to have a corn field,' " his wife said. "He was just a very special, special man."
In addition to his wife, brothers, and daughter Dakota, Mr. Lambert leaves his mother, Evelyn (Fahey) of Milton; two other daughters, Georgina Taylor of Canton and Shannon Lee of North Dartmouth; a son, Lucas L. of North Dartmouth; and five sisters, Mary Ellen Pelligrino of Bridgewater, Lorraine Bower of Sharon, Linda of Brockton, and Robin and Tracey Lambert-Egan, both of Milton.
A funeral Mass will be said today at 10 a.m. in Holy Name Church in Fall River. Burial will be in Evergreen Cemetery in Dartmouth.
