Page 60 - WCM Summer 2022

three [of us] kids would learn an instrument. We could pick, so I picked a harp. But I didn’t get one until I was 25! I started with violin, then flute, and finally French horn. In high school, I became a singer, then majored in voice performance at Cleveland State. Then I made my way to Maine to do summer stock in Casco, and met Allyn Fenn. He played guitar and sang. I moved in with him three days later, and married him 15 years after that. He died in 2012. We had a musical duo, Silk and Steel, and played all over New England.”
Roth expresses her moral imperative to “build com- munity” wherever she goes. “In 2019 the grange
came up for sale in South Waterford. My friend George Weiss said we should go look, and I walked through and said to myself, ‘I’m going to buy it,’
and 30 days later, it was mine. And then, of course, Covid happened.” Roth explains that this summer she’s launching her first full-scale concert series every other Thursday evening throughout the summer. She’s planned a song circle every second Sunday afternoon in the School House Café, a two room schoolhouse in the grange until 1950. The café will serve light pastry, coffee, and weekly soup. Anne Bradbury will offer
an art workshop for kids so parents may attend the song circle. In June and July, contra dancing will be offered, and ballroom dancing will grace the grange in August. Roth is an aficionado of ballroom, and is looking for a partner!
Additionally, in June several local authors will offer readings from their works, followed by a reception and Q & A session. Finally, Roth plans to end the season on September 11 with the second annual performance of the play The Guys by Anne Nelson, with all proceeds directed to the Waterford Fire Department in memory of Bill Haynes (known as the mayor of Waterford), who served as assistant chief of the Waterford Volunteer Fire Department.
The Hayloft at Dragonfly Barn
Richard and Lauren Packard were the ideal couple
to breathe life into an old dairy farm in Bridgton. With help from friends, families and neighbors, The Hayloft at Dragonfly Barn has become a sustainable center for the arts in Maine’s lake region. Richard’s people arrived in the Americas in the 1640s, and were subsistence farmers for generations.
“I was born in Norway, and grew up in the Bethel and Bryant Pond areas. I graduated from Gould Academy in 1966. My father was a carpenter. He worked for Oxford Paper in Rumford for 30 years, and worked on many of the houses around Bryant Pond. My first job was straightening nails.”
Upon his graduation from high school, Richard attended Northeastern University where, in the early 70s, he met his wife Lauren, a California girl attending Boston University. Lauren adds, “Over
The Bradley Jazz Collection are in the pocket with their soulful sounds at The Hayloft at Dragonfly Barn in Bridgton.
60
Jeffrey Packard