WESTON, Vt. – Clear skies and crisp fall air made for the perfect backdrop as the Village of Weston kicked off its first Weston Village Fair & Jubilee celebration on Saturday, Sept. 12. The celebration marked an important milestone for the Vermont Country Store, which is commemorating 80 years in business at its Weston location, while helping to bring the community together in celebration of the history and longevity of the Town of Weston and its local businesses.
The Vermont Country Store, a sponsor of the fair, was among several businesses and organizations marking milestone anniversaries this year. Others include the Farrar Park Association, celebrating 140 years; the Weston Village Store, 135 years; the Wilder Memorial Library, 125 years; the Weston Rod & Gun Club, 95 years; the Weston Theater Company, 90 years; and The Little School, celebrating its 50th anniversary.
It has been 80 years since Vrest and Mildred Orton opened the doors of the Vermont Country Store, located on Main Street in Weston, and welcomed the public, but the story of the store began a year earlier, when Vrest put together a collection of items for sale, printed his first catalog, and mailed it to everyone on his Christmas list in 1945. His mailing list included friends he had worked with in Washington, D.C. The Countryman Press was the name of his printing operation when he returned to Vermont.
Eliot Orton, Vrest’s grandson, described that first catalog as the size of a modern-day iPhone: “It featured 36 items you can buy now – 14 for the house, seven to eat, three to wear, and 12 to read, and all fine for gifts.” Eliot said, “Back then, the type had to be set up for print, each individual letter, and it included some sketches, written text, very small photos – some were drawings, some with no photo or drawing – and it said, ‘Vrest & Mildred revive a Country Store.’ It contained items that he gathered locally out of his garage and throughout the neighborhood: wood craft items, grains, things from the mill in Weston.”
That first catalog was sent out before a store ever existed. Those who received Vrest’s catalog in the mail wrote back with their orders. Many customers included an intention to visit the store they assumed the catalog represented. “They wanted to come see the actual store,” Eliot said.
So, Vrest and Mildred opened the Vermont Country Store in Weston, at its current location. “Vrest was certainly an inventive marketer, as was our dad, Lyman,” Eliot said. “He was responsible for really growing the business.”
Eliot recalls growing up in the family business, “I remember we went to Flood Brook Elementary School in Londonderry. The bus driver would drop us off at the store and Maude Gabert [former storekeeper] would look after us as the boss’s sons roaming around in the store.” He continued, “She would put us to work marking things, filling jars with candy.”
“I started working there officially on my summer breaks in seventh grade and I worked the whole summer through high school and college. I loved talking with customers, hearing their stories, wanting to hear what they had to say,” Eliot said. “I felt a little like being on stage…I sliced cheese at the cheese counter. It was nice to be able to gauge right on the nose, and Maude taught us how to cut cheese on the big wheel. She had this technique of following the line coming down the cheese, where you could learn to cut exactly a pound, and customers were amazed, and it was always fun to be a part of that.”
Eliot and his brother Gardner Orton are now partners, continuing the family tradition as proprietors of the Vermont Country Store, each with children of their own. “It’s fun that we’ve beat the odds. We employ our neighbors and friends, we’re supportive of our communities, and we’re proud of our employees and what we’ve accomplished. It makes me proud to be part of the Vermont community,” Eliot said.
The Weston Village Fair & Jubilee began with a day of fun-filled activities for all ages. Inside the Vermont Country Store, illustrator and author R.W. Alley hosted a book signing, along with a live demonstration showing how to draw Paddington Bear.
A John Deere tractor led the parade, followed by a series of unique cars, floats “Follow the Call of the Disco Ball” and “The Vermont Country Store – Orton Storekeepers,” a horse-drawn wagon, a group of bicyclists, and the Weston Fire Department’s Engine No. 1.
The streets and stores were busy with activity and speeches at the bandstand, as well as a moment of silence in memory of those lost on 9/11. Horse-drawn wagons passed by, fair games and food tents lined the Green, food trucks parked along Park Street, and live bands played for dancing in the street.
Back inside the Vermont Country Store, standing beside the old cast-iron, potbelly stove, Lyman explained, “We’re leaning on the potbelly stove, cast iron, 19th century. You fed the wood into it or even coal, if you had that. That was in every country store, and that’s what heated the store.”
“The tradition was there was always chairs around it, and there’s a checkerboard, because people would come in – the old timers, and play checkers. They’d sit around in the chairs and talk, go over the day’s things. The old country store was the center of the town…the conversation area,” Lyman recollected. “We got the chairs, we got the checkerboard, and so people sit down and they play checkers, and they say, “Hey, I haven’t played checkers in years!”
The store is set up to welcome local townspeople and visitors from all over. “The conversation area stays here, and we like to talk to the customers who come in…we want to get to know them and say ‘Hi.’ It’s fun to talk to people,” Lyman said.
“My parents started the business when I was 5 years old, so 1946. I had a built-in summer vacation/winter vacation job my whole life, working in the store. I grew up in the store, I worked in the store, and when I got out of college, I went to college in Middlebury College, I put my apron back on and I went back to work, and the rest is history,” Lyman said, adding, “My sons have taken over the ownership of the store.”
Asked about the store’s success and how it has survived over the past 80 years, Lyman explained, “Essentially, we’re in the nostalgia business. What we look for, and find, and bring back or recreate are products that were popular some years ago, that people remembered, and then they went away…big companies bought them and forgot about them, stopped marketing them, stopped selling, because they couldn’t sell a gazillion dollars’ worth. Well, I don’t need a gazillion dollars, I just need a bit more. So, we find these products and revive them and offer them back, and people’s memories are such that – oh my god, I remember that, and that’s the praise we hear all the time. That’s connecting the past to the present, and so it’s great fun. We love doing it.”
“It’s hard to keep a business going for 80 years,” Lyman said. Reflecting on those eight decades, he noted the catalog has been instrumental in bringing people to the store, to Vermont, and to the Town of Weston. “It drives people…all of the time, we’re welcoming people who it is their first time here, and they’re clutching the catalog or it’s their 10th time here, and people order from all over the country,” he added.
“Having been in the business my whole life, I’m about to turn 85,” Lyman said. “So here we are about to celebrate my birthday and the birthday of the Vermont Country Store.”