Longtime fundraiser organizers passing the torch

STRONG – For the last seven years, Doug and Sherry Walrath have been the driving duo behind one of the community’s largest fundraisers: the Speakeasy. Last year the Roaring 20s-themed event brought in its largest haul yet, raising roughly $5,000 for the Care and Share Food Pantry by way of good food, great music and lots of dancing. As they embark on their 80s, the couple has decided to pass the planning along to a different group of organizers – with an eye toward keeping the style and theme of the event consistent.

“I found a box of my mother’s old sheet music from the 1920s. It was such a fun era, and phenomenal music,” Sherry Walrath said.

She sits on the sun porch of their farmhouse which dates back to the 1800s, put together in pink lipstick and nails despite having just baked a slew of pies for Thanksgiving. The “One Hundred Acre Farm” is misty from on again, off again rain and the bordering Sandy River that sweeps its way down their land.

Doug and Sherry still grow and preserve the majority of their food on the farm. Blue tap lines grid the forest, waiting for sugar season. The goats, sheep, donkeys and chickens that once roamed the farm are gone, but the Walraths still find comfort in the deer and the birds that inhabit the property on their own accord.

“I remember looking at Julie and asking do the whippoorwills call at dusk? When she said yes I’m pretty sure I started to cry,” Sherry said.

The couple bought the farm from Julie Fast, who was herself in her eighties, continuing the hard work of keeping cattle all on her own. They drove up from Albany in 1980, after seeing an advertisement for the farm in Yankee Magazine. Despite long-term plans of moving to rural Maine, the decision was made quickly after seeing One Hundred Acre Farm.

“Julie was a true Mainer. She decided what she wanted to happen and waited nine months for us to get the money together, despite other, larger offers. That’s a Mainer for you. She knew we would love it and she wanted us to have it,” Doug says.

Finding someone to cover the remainder of his courses at the University of New York at Albany, the couple moved up in May of ’81, quickly making a mental note of Farmington’s early bed time.

“You couldn’t even get gas after 6 p.m.,” Doug says.

They threw themselves into gardening that summer- a task that Sherry had grown up around being raised in rural New York. They threw themselves into the community too, realizing the local value of neighbors when people came out of the woodwork to help with a dying mule.

“People just really care about other people. It truly is a place where neighbors help neighbors,” Sherry says.

Which is in part what has fueled the Walraths’ desire to throw one of the biggest parties of the year. After seeing a void in fundraisers for the food pantry, they got to work. Choosing the theme of speakeasy seemed obvious and the Walraths committed wholeheartedly by organizing a traditional jazz band to play- The South Strong Road Crew.

The event included dance lessons provided by Sherry, who grew up dancing professionally, as well as a secret code to get in and even a staged police raid.

“Tom Saviello ‘paid them off’ though, so they left us alone,” Doug jokes.

Doug and Sherry both play in the band, as well as lead the dance floor with their moves. Doug learned to play piano from a blind man in a hotel lobby, which is why, he says, his fingering is terrible. But he gets the chords right, which is all that really matters.

Sherry grew up dancing in clubs and bars while her mother’s band played on stage. She earned $25 an hour to teach her skills to others, a fortune compared to the 80 cents per hour Doug made in construction.

“I guess you should’ve been a tap dancer,” Sherry laughs.

Back then, Doug says, traditional jazz music was still popular. Music was still considered a thing for adults, and hadn’t yet been touched by the baby boomers of the sixties- a shift that changed everything in music.

“It’s been recovered recently though. It’s fun seeing people discover how great New Orleans jazz is,” Doug says.

This year’s event, scheduled for early April, will keep the spotlight shining on traditional jazz music and dancing, and on that “neighbors helping neighbors” feel of Franklin County.

“There’s a lot of need here, and a lot of incredible giving. When you sit on a board and see the people who are just volunteering their time, what you see is that money couldn’t buy the resources in that one room,” Doug says. “The speakeasy has become a part of all that.”