Editor’s Note: This story by Alex Hanson first appeared in the Valley News on Dec. 14.
BETHEL — A house fire early Tuesday morning claimed the lives of a Bethel couple.
Neighbors identified the residents of 2937 Christian Hill Road, Davis Dimock and Victoria Weber, both in their 70s, as victims of the fire.
Fire personnel were called to the home at 5:23 Tuesday morning and found the two-story brick structure with an addition on the back fully engulfed in fire, Vermont State Police said in a press release Tuesday. The bodies of two people found in the home were taken to the chief medical examiner’s office in Burlington for autopsies.
Fire departments from Bethel, South Royalton and Barnard responded to the fire. The state Department of Public Safety Fire and Explosion Investigation Unit responded to the scene to investigate the origin and cause of the fire. An initial investigation suggests the origin and cause are not suspicious, authorities said.
Dimock and Weber were longtime residents of the home on Christian Hill Road, which Dimock’s father, Marshall Dimock, a prominent economist, purchased in 1940.
Both were active in town affairs. Dimock was on the town planning commission in the 2000s and participated in a rewrite of the town plan. He and Weber were engaged in the restoration of the Town Hall. Weber was an author of the Bethel Operator’s Manual, a guide to the town’s civic life that came out in early 2020. The manual was an outgrowth of a Town Meeting Solutions committee they both served on, according to Eric Benson, Bethel’s town and school moderator.
“They were very strong proponents of the Town Meeting form of government,” Benson said.
As devoted as they were to civic life, they were also rather private, preferring to spend time on their land. Many people knew them, but few knew them well, friends and neighbors said.
Dimock and Weber became a couple in the 1970s and lived in a small structure on the Dimock family’s 270-acre property on Christian Hill Road. Dimock’s parents were still living in the big brick house. It wasn’t until 10 or 15 years ago that the two were married, said Mary Pavone, a longtime friend of the couple.
The wedding was “a very non-event,” Pavone said. “They just did it.”
Both Dimock and Weber were known for their stewardship of the land they lived on. Weber, who worked for many years as a librarian at Vermont Law School, was an avid gardener and herbalist, Pavone said.
“She and I and others here on Christian Hill spent hours every summer pulling up invasive plants,” Robert Vaillancourt, a neighbor, said Tuesday.
Dimock was known for his art installations, arrangements of stone and other materials, visible from the road where it passed through their property. Pavone said they were both healthy and young for their years and looked forward to many more years together.
“I’m just so shocked and sad,” she said.
It’s unclear whether there are any family members who survive the couple. Maurice “Mo” Brigham is the stepson of Dimock’s late sister, Marianne Brigham, and a neighbor of Dimock and Weber.
“I don’t even know who’s writing an obituary for him,” he said Tuesday.
Bethel Fire Chief David Aldrighetti said the house did not appear to have any working smoke detectors. He urged the public to make sure their homes have detectors and that those detectors are working properly and have fresh batteries in them.
