‘An extended family barbecue’: Wendell celebrates Old Home Day

WENDELL — Vendors, musicians, artists and Wendell residents took to the sun-soaked town common on Saturday for the annual Old Home Day celebration, which returned to an August date after being held in September last year.

“It’s an amazing effort on behalf of the town,” said Kathy-Ann Becker, Wendell’s town crier and a member of Wendell’s Old Home Day Organizing Group. “A lot of people do a lot of things cooperatively and without recognition to make this happen.”

More than a dozen vendors occupied the perimeter of the town common. Christine Texiera, an Old Home Day organizer and local artist, had a tent filled with original watercolors depicting nature. In a milk crate on the side of her tent were pay-what-you-can prints, geared toward children. 

“If I start something and I don’t like it, or if I print something and it doesn’t come out right, I put it to the side instead of throwing it away,” Teixeira explained. “And this is totally me trying to turn little kids into art collectors. They can buy it anywhere from a penny to $5.”

To Texiera, and most others in attendance, Old Home Day is similar to a town reunion.

“It means that anybody who’s ever lived in town can come back and see most of the people that have ever lived in town on the common for a nice party,” she said.

At noon, Town Coordinator Kelly Tyler and Selectboard members Adam Feltman and Paul Doud announced Wendell’s Citizen of the Year: Christine Heard. Though Heard was not in attendance at the time of the announcement, Feltman said it was determined she should receive the honor for her “22 years of unwavering service to the town of Wendell, serving on the Broadband Committee and helping found the Dollars for Wendell Scholars,” a nonprofit that provides scholarships to Wendell residents pursuing higher education.

At 10 Center St., “PHOTO: Sixty-Five Years of Edward Judice Art,” a one-day exhibit of the work of Edward Judice, was on display. Judice, a photographer who was once a Wendell resident, gave his entire collection to the Wendell Historical Society.

“It’s a collection that has great variety,” said Edward Hines, president of the Wendell Historical Society who also happens to be a nephew of Judice. “Between his personal art and commercial work, it represents his life’s accomplishments.”

A significant amount of Judice’s work was developed using the gum bichromate method, a 19th-century developing method that gives his photos an impressionistic, painterly look. 

The Bear Mountain Boys, a local blues group that has performed at Old Home Day every year it has happened, since 1974, began its set at around 1 p.m. Perry Howarth, the leader of the band, concurred with Teixeira that Old Home Day is “a kind of reunion.”

“Friends and family show up, and we get to play with people we don’t usually get to play with,” Howarth said. “Guys from the old days, you know?”

Children’s attractions were in abundance on Saturday, including a potato sack race, a face-painting booth and, most popular of all, a therapy bunny stand featuring four 3-week-old bunnies and the mother. Run by Danny Botkin of Laughing Dog Farm in Gill, the stand welcomed people of all ages, but was a favorite among young Wendell residents.

“It’s therapy, actually, not just for the people, but for the bunnies,” Botkin said. “Because the more they get handled, the better they are for therapy.”

The day’s festivities also included a tree rededication in the wake of the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki near the end of World War II.

Kelly Surprenant, Wendell resident and owner of the Rainbow Rack, an upcycled fashion business, emphasized the community aspect of Old Home Day.

“It’s the charm of small-town New England, you know?” she said. “It’s like an extended family barbecue. … It’s a really excellent, old-timey tradition that was kind of brought into the modern age.”