A Brief History of Walker Farm
The house was built circa 1860 by the Drury family. Later in the 19th century, the house was occupied by the Wilder family. Both were prominent families in Weston at the time.
Henry and Martha Walker purchased the property at the turn of the century. The Walker family can trace its roots in the area to the early 1800’s, when the family lived in the neighboring town of Andover. Four children were born to Henry and Martha: Laurence and Gladys (twins), brother Kenneth, and Harold (who died in infancy).
After his father ceased running the farm, Kenneth and his wife Anna ran the dairy farm until the mid-1980’s. Under Kenneth, the farm was expanded from a family farm to a commercial dairy operation. In the 1950’s, dances were held in the hayloft of the barn until the farm grew to where the space was needed to store hay. Many in the community fondly remember their first jobs as working on the farm helping to tend to the fields and the cows. Even after ceasing the commercial dairy operation, Kenneth and Anna lived in the house until their deaths (less than a month apart) in 2004. Gladys spent most of her life in Weston, and most of that time in the farmhouse, which in later life she shared with Kenneth and his family.
The Walkers were beloved member of the community all of their lives. Anna was a schoolteacher and both she and Kenneth were active members for the community. While Laurence pursued a career in academia in Georgia, he frequently visited Weston and was actively involved in the Weston Historical Society. Gladys was a consummate storyteller of both past and present, and famous for her doughnuts that she made every Friday morning.
In 2006 the Weston Playhouse Theatre Company (“Playhouse”) purchased the property from Gladys, the last surviving member of the family. Under the terms of the purchase agreement, Gladys remained in the house until her death in 2008. It was indeed fitting that the property went to the Playhouse, as Gladys had been involved in the Playhouse since its founding in 1935, and in acting with neighborhood children even before that tim
“I was always interested in the theater” said Gladys at the time of the sale. “ Well you see the Austins and Raymonds thought we would all like to be actors and actresses when we grew up, even before we knew very much about what it was. So we’d have shows. We’d get our mothers and some of our neighbors to give us their old clothes and we’d dress up. So somebody – I don’t know who it was – named the road from the Raymond’s house to our house, the Avenue of the Stars. And I tell you, we had some pretty good shows! Lawrence, Kenneth and Raymond one summer made a playhouse out on our lawn, and we’d put shows on in the evening. We’d invite our parents and anyone else who wanted to come.
Well, we didn’t have the Playhouse to put on shows until 1935. Before that we used to put the shows on in the town hall. And then we’d go around different towns giving them. One show I remember we went to seven different places. And our folks decided…. Our dad said the boys would never get anything done in the hayfield so we might as well give up haying. Well, we didn’t have time because we had to go early in the day to put up the scenery and things.
When they opened the Playhouse in 1935 they put on “Icebound.” And that was something. And then we gave two others that summer and I was in them all. Well, I was foolish enough to be. Of course Weston used to be called a very dramatic town, ‘cause they loved dramatics here.
The Playhouse opened its state-of-the-art performance center behind the farmhouse and barn complex in 2017. But the farmhouse remained vacant with no plans for use until the Playhouse and the owners of THE HUB collaborated to renovate the farmhouse and once again make it a place where the community could come to gather to eat, drink and share good times.