Remembering Janet Wakefield

The Queen of Danville


Com­piled by Sharon Lakey


On June 16, 2009, I met Rita Calkins at the Park and Ride in St. Johns­bury to pick up a pho­to­graph of Mar­i­on Sevi­gny. “And now the Queen of Danville has died!” she exclaimed as she hand­ed me the pho­to. 


“The Queen of Danville?” I asked, per­plexed. 


“Janet Wake­field,” she replied. It was the first time I had heard of Danville hav­ing a queen, but the title was explained to me lat­er. when one called Janet and she was­n’t home, the record­ing would announced, “You have reached the Queen of Danville…“


For near­ly 25 years, Janet Wake­field held court at Steve Cob­b’s Danville Restau­rant and Inn. It was an infor­mal court, but a val­ued one where those gath­ered could dis­cuss the affairs of the town, the state, and the world. The courtiers changed over the years, with mem­bers com­ing and going. It still meets, but, alas, the Queen is only there in spir­it. In the fol­low­ing sto­ries, some mem­bers of the court reflect on their fond expe­ri­ences with the Queen.


Dot Larrabee…
“Who  is this every hair in place, gray haired  lady, dressed to a T, wear­ing dan­gling ear rings, flashy socks, rid­ing around in a yel­low Mus­tang con­vert­ible with pigs on the dash?” peo­ple would ask.
 
“Oh, that’s Janet Wake­field,” we would reply, “Who else?”  I didn’t get to know Janet until she retired in Sep­tem­ber 30, 1985, from work­ing at the Depart­ment of Wel­fare.  With a chuck­le, she would tell us about how at her retire­ment par­ty Janie Kitchel said, “If you could get by the old b—- at the front desk, you were okay.” Any­ways, after her retire­ment she had time to join a group that had cof­fee every morn­ing at the Danville Restau­rant.  We always knew when she had arrived.  She would walk in, slam the door, stand with one hand on her hip, and look around to see who was there.  After that she would pro­ceed to the table and ask in a loud voice, “Who are those peo­ple over there?”  Before she left she usu­al­ly found out their names, had a good con­ver­sa­tion with them and knew a lit­tle or a lot of their life history.

Every town needs a  Janet Wake­field sell­ing tick­ets for fundrais­ers, col­lect­ing mon­ey for The Covenant House, solic­it­ing food for a lun­cheon after a funer­al ser­vice, pour­ing punch at the lun­cheon, call­ing if some­one was  ill to see if there is any­thing she or the church could do, vol­un­teer­ing at school to lis­ten to chil­dren read, and giv­ing out flu­o­ride treat­ments. These are just a few things she did.  She has left a big void in our community.

It has been a year on June 16, 2009, since her pass­ing.  We had our dif­fer­ences some­times, but you always knew where she stood on any giv­en sub­ject.   I miss her a lot.


Ter­ri Graves…
I met Janet Wake­field in March 1974 when I start­ed employ­ment with the state of Ver­mont. Janet was the Gate­keep­er (boy was she!) for the Depart­ment of Social Wel­fare. I was a low­ly temp, hired as an aide for the Depart­ment of Social and Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Ser­vices. Noon­time, my first day at work, I was imme­di­ate­ly sub­ject­ed to her grilling. “Who are you, where are you from, who’s your moth­er, who’s your father, are you mar­ried…” You get my drift. We became insult bud­dies. We could trade them read­i­ly and often–triumphant when one of us “got one over” on the other.

I only real­ly got to know Janet after mov­ing to Danville in 1999. Both of our life cir­cum­stances had changed con­sid­er­ably. She had retired but was always busy doing some­thing for oth­ers, either orga­ni­za­tions or indi­vid­u­als. Janet was eas­i­ly one of the most civic mind­ed indi­vid­u­als I’ve ever met. I, on the oth­er hand, became very iso­lat­ed. I was work­ing part-time, car­ing for my elder­ly par­ents and, sub­se­quent­ly, mourn­ing their loss. Many friends had grad­u­al­ly dis­ap­peared from my life, as I was unable to sus­tain a social life.

Janet basi­cal­ly extend­ed a hand up. She kept in touch by call­ing and invit­ed me to join the morn­ing cof­fee group at The Danville Inn. “You need to get out,” she said. Through her kind­ness, I was able to begin my jour­ney out of sad­ness, slow­ly devel­op­ing new acquain­tances and friend­ships along the way. Janet, whether she knew it or not, had become a very impor­tant men­tor to me.

Alice Cruess…
Sev­er­al years ago, my fam­i­ly and I dis­cov­ered what was to become our favorite din­ing spot–Steve Cob­b’s Danville Inn. At our sec­ond Sat­ur­day morn­ing break­fast there, real­iz­ing we were becom­ing reg­u­lars, Janet stopped by our table to intro­duce her­self ask­ing, “Who are you?” We told her we were from St. Johns­bury. She over­looked that fact, and we soon became fast friends. We knew we had arrived when Janet invit­ed us to sit at the Danville Table. 

Togeth­er, we trav­eled far and wide on shop­ping and din­ing trips, and wher­ev­er we went we always ran into some­one Janet knew. She was fun-­lov­ing and gen­er­ous, some­times hon­est to a fault, but she gen­uine­ly took an inter­est in and cared about oth­ers. Janet had strong sense of com­mu­ni­ty, which played a large part in our deci­sion to set­tle in Danville, a town we’ve come to love as much as we did Janet.

Hazel Greaves…
I nev­er knew what Janet was going to say! Some­times that made me a bit ner­vous, but it was always in fun. And her laugh! Did­n’t she have a won­der­ful laugh? We could always hear that in the church din­ing room and at Steve Cob­b’s restau­rant. She usu­al­ly moved around the restau­rant to find some­one new to talk with before set­tling down with the Danville table. And did you ever see Janet throw her leg way up on the buf­fet counter at Steve’s? She was quite agile! I do miss her noise.

Jane Milne...
The mem­o­ries I have of Janet are among my fond­est. Her socks, ear­rings and love­ly thick hair were always so inter­est­ing. I count­ed on her tele­phone calls before and after the Celtics’ games. Oh, how she could sput­ter if they lost! A vis­it with Janet in her home was tru­ly a trea­sure. My last vis­it with her was about two weeks before her death, and we had a good laugh when she TOLD me to sit with her in the den. “Where?” I asked myself after look­ing around, so I tossed things from a chair to the floor. I miss my friend Janet.

Jim Bai­ley…
Janet was always ready to embrace strangers and con­nect with peo­ple.  It was a plea­sure to see her at the head of the “round table” at the Danville Inn Restau­rant hold­ing court!  She was out­spo­ken, called a spade a spade, and though we were poles apart polit­i­cal­ly, we had great fun jab­bing each oth­er with tongue in cheek on cur­rent affairs.  She was my favorite Democrat.

Mary Bai­ley…
Our first encounter with Janet was when our boys were about ages sev­en and three.  We took our gold­en retriev­er pup­py with us to the post office.  We ran into her and she asked them what they named their pup­py.  When they told her “Bar­ney” she asked, “Couldn’t you think of a bet­ter name than that?” (Typ­i­cal.)
Years ago we walked into the Danville Restau­rant and there sat Janet, Dot Larrabee and Alice Hafn­er at her table.  We kid­ding­ly asked them how long you had to live in Danville before you could sit at that table.  We shared her table every Sat­ur­day morn­ing since. Her con­ver­sa­tions always includ­ed her grand­chil­dren– their where­abouts, what they were doing, their accom­plish­ments. She was very proud of them. I miss Janet and remem­ber her with much love.

Steve Cobb…
I think Janet and I had a love-hate rela­tion­ship. We had some rocky times, and some­where along the way we became the best of friends. She came into the restau­rant every day, and we talked on the days I was closed. We also made a trip to her favorite store in Lit­tle­ton every oth­er week. 

Janet was a Noah’s Ark col­lec­tor, and I am a teapot col­lec­tor. Janet’s house was loaded with lots of things, but Noah cer­tain­ly stood out more than any­thing else. If you come into the restau­rant you will notice that all of my teapots are dis­played with their spouts point­ing to the left. 

On a Sat­ur­day morn­ing, short­ly after Janet died, I was sit­ting at the organ in the restau­rant vis­it­ing with the folks at the table near­by. Some­thing made me look up to the top cor­ner shelf of teapots, a shelf that is unreach­able with­out a chair. The cen­ter teapot on that shelf had been turned around, so that the spout head­ed to the right. It was my Noah’s Ark teapot.

To view a relat­ed pho­to album, click here 
This arti­cle was first pub­lished in the July, 2010 issue of the North Star Monthly
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