For 42 years on the last Sunday in July, the Littlefield family’s farm in East Benton has transformed into a festival of music. At its peak in the 1980s, the East Benton Fiddler’s Contest, Convention and Bluegrass Festival had over 3500 people in attendance. Hundreds still show up every year, often including three generations within families. They come to share the fun, the music and the history.
You might imagine, then, that the Littlefields are a musical family. When I visited the farm and chatted with sisters Thelma (known as “Chuck”) and Becky Littlefield last week, they corrected that assumption.
The Littlefields told me that no one in the family is musical. Well, except Martha, who plays the folk guitar and Dave who played the gutbucket.
The Littlefields’ annual event did not grow out of a love of music. It grew out of plain old love — family love, friendship love and the good heart of one extraordinary woman.
When I stepped out of my car in the driveway of the aged farmhouse where Red and Shirley Littlefield raised their nine children, I was immersed in sound. All along the front porch were windchimes of various sizes, and the breeze whipped them into a multi-toned symphony.
Chuck, 53, is the youngest Littlefield and was sitting on the porch with friends. He stood to greet me.
“Wow,” I said. “That’s a lot of wind chimes.”
“That’s mom,” said Chuck with a laugh. “She’s saying hello.”
Chuck’s mom, Shirley Littlefield, died in 2004 but continues to be the inspiration behind the annual event. Shirley grew up in the same old wood-frame home where she raised her nine children, the same house her own dad grew up in. The family home goes back to 1905.
It’s not a large home, but the 11 Littlefields lived with even more extended family.
“That’s how we were raised,” said Chuck’s sister Becky, who joined our conversation later at their kitchen table. There’s lots of history here. … We grew up with our gramps. He never left.”
They also grew up with their mom’s sister Patty, who had cerebral palsy — “Aunt Patty was like Mom’s first kid,” Becky said. “Mom quit school to take care of Patty. Family is everything.”
Family, however, is a loosely defined term for the Littlefields.
“I had eight brothers and sisters,” Chuck said, “but I had thousands of siblings.”
Shirley was a born caregiver. She had a way of adopting people into the fold of her family. When her sister Patty died about 1970, she took a job at Colby College and found dozens of new kids to adopt. They started coming out to the farm in Benton to spend time with the family, learn about gardening and farm animals, and get Shirley’s home-cooked meals.
Greg Boardman was one of those first Colby kids, and he’d bring his fiddle along to Shirley’s. One day he raised the idea of having a place for a lot of fiddlers to play, and Shirley said, “Let’s go ahead and do it.”
Greg said to her, “Do you know how many people might come? Seventy-five!”
“That’s no problem,” Shirley said. “I’ll just put on more mac and cheese.”
That was 1972. For over 30 years Shirley took charge of almost everything for the event the Littlefields refer to simply as “Fiddlers.”
“She got the bands, the vendors, the toilets, the posters. Now it takes seven of us to do what Mom used to do with one person,” said Chuck.
There are only seven because two of the Littlefield siblings have passed, and they will be remembered along with their mom and others at this year’s event.
Even though Shirley was not present, I got to hear some of her story in her own voice. Chuck and Becky played me a recording made by another Colby student, where she said why she wasn’t rehired as a dorm custodian after her first year.
“I was getting too close to the kids,” Shirley said. “When you’re like I am and want to give, you can’t very well turn it off.”
In response to Shirley’s dismissal, a huge contingent of students complained. Colby responded by hiring Shirley to work in the dining service instead, where she stayed for over 25 years.
During that time, many more Colby students became a part of the Littlefield household, and a part of Fiddlers. When Shirley died, Colby flew their flag at half-mast.
Shirley once had heart surgery, Chuck said.
“The surgeon came out and said she had a tiny heart, no bigger than a child’s. But she had a bigger heart than anyone you’d ever know,” Chuck said. When she died, her many fans were determined to carry on Shirley’s legacy.
“It’s costly,” said Becky, referring to the annual event. “We don’t make any money.”
The large, rambling Littlefield property shows the wear and tear of a long history, but tradition, celebration and family outshine hardship.
“We didn’t have a lot,” said Becky. Then the two sisters spoke in unison, as if scripted: “But we had a lot of love.”
Love is what they pass on every July. “During Fiddlers,” Chuck said, “everybody up there on that field belongs to this family. Once you’re there, you’re a Littlefield.”
The 2015 East Benton Fiddlers event will take place from 11 a.m. to dusk July 26. For more information, visit http://www.eastbentonfiddlers.com/ or Facebook for more information.
Robin Clifford Wood welcomes feedback at robin.everyday@gmail.com.