The story of the recently auctioned Norman Rockwell painting, “Home for Thanksgiving,” which hung at the Winchendon American Legion Post 193, began in 1959 when Coral Grout’s father, Charles, visited the Rev. Wilfrid Tisdell, pastor of the Immaculate Heart of Mary church in Winchendon, seeking donations for the new Legion building on School Street.
“Rev. Tisdell donated $500 and invited my father up into his library to select a painting to hang on the walls of the new building,” recalled Coral Grout, past president of the Winchendon American Legion Auxiliary and currently national secretary of the American Legion Auxiliary.
“Dad went upstairs and then came back. Rev. Tisdell asked him if he had found a painting and he replied yes. My father showed him the painting and the pastor said ‘Well, Charles, you have selected the most expensive painting in my collection.’”
The painting hung in the post from 1959 to 1982, Grout said.
“In 1982, a gentleman came into the post and spoke to the bartender and offered to buy the painting for $500. The offer was passed on to the officers who made the decision to find out how much the painting was worth,” she said.
The painting was taken to the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge in 1982, which verified the painting was an original, setting its value at $60,000, Grout said. The painting hung in the museum since that time and has been all over the world, including being exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, as well as at art museums in Los Angeles, Atlanta and in Europe, she said.
When COVID-19 hit, the post was closed for 18 months and lost almost all of its revenue, Grout explained.
“The building is used almost every weekend for events. The post in Winchendon is a community building. The Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts use it, the Fire Department, the schools, the Winchendon public school alumni, weddings, gatherings after funerals, bridal showers. It was hard during the pandemic. Everything was closed,” she said.
“Through that first year, the post went through all of its reserves they had. The building needed renovations and repairs, including a refrigerator-freezer that is the size of a small room, a new oil burner, a new stove, a new parking lot, a new roof for the post as well as a roof for the area’s outside facility,” Grout related.
“That was when the decision was made to sell the painting. We acknowledged the fact that the plan of what to do with the proceeds was the only way to save the post. The repairs will make it safer, more modern and we won’t have leaks.”
There were a lot of discussions before selling the painting, Grout added.
“There was a lot of debate as to whether to sell it or not. Some were more vocal than others. I had fought for many years not to sell the painting,” she said. “Four months ago, I sat by my father’s grave. I said, ‘What do you want me to do?’ A couple of nights later, I had a dream where my father was in my bedroom and he said to give it up.”
The museum in Stockbridge declined to purchase the painting, Grout said, as they were told the museum does not purchase single Rockwell paintings. Instead, the painting was auctioned Friday by Heritage Auctioneers in Texas, selling for $3.6 million.
The money raised from the sale of the painting will be put into a trust fund for the Legion. The post will use only interest and earnings from the trust to complete the repairs needed.
“We are hoping (the painting) is appreciated by the new owner as much as the people at the post have appreciated it,” Grout said. “This painting has been a part of my life since I was 5 years old. My father started the process with the reverend. It feels like a part of my life that’s fading away.”
Carla Charter is a freelance writer from Phillipston. Her writing focuses on history with a particular interest in the North Quabbin area. Contact her at cjfreelancewriter@earthlink.net.