Remembering Newark Valley’s first Apple Festivals

It was Bonnie Gregrow’s idea to have an Apple Festival in 1981– she thought there were too many festivals in the summer already, and she asked me to “co-chair” it with her. I foolishly agreed to help! 

I believe we had the first Apple Festival that October, making this year the 36th Apple Festival, not the 38th. My daughter was born in September 1979 (38 years ago), and I did not plan the Apple Festival from my bed at Wilson Hospital!  

We did not have any tents for the first few Festivals, as vinyl rental tents were not in keeping with the time period. Until the County Board of Health put an end to it, we had venison stew cooked over the fire in the big cast iron pot, and all our pies were made in the members’ homes. 

An Apple Festival at that time was a novelty. That first year Nellie Snapp sold pies out of the pantry (a.k.a. buttery). People lined up to buy pie, and no one could get into the house! We changed the pie location after that.  

We ran out of almost everything on Saturday. Nellie went home and baked a dozen more pies, as did others. More stew was made, brought to the farmstead, and dumped into the kettle. Bonnie and I made more apple butter. People were peering into the windows waiting for us to open up! We had hired a lovely couple that played folk songs on the fiddle and concertina.  

A few years later I tried cooking the salt potatoes on the wood stove in the summer kitchen, but I almost burned the place down! Needless to say, we changed the salt potato location.  

One year we held a dance at the old Newark Valley Grange building, on the Saturday night of the Festival. Nellie brought bales of hay and we decorated. We hired a group called “Toss the Feathers.” After a full day at the Apple Festival there I was, selling cookies and punch. Good thing I was young! People asked when we were going to hold the next dance, but it was a lot of work, and we were exhausted. Nothing has changed, except that now we are older.

Come to this year’s Newark Valley Apple Festival, Oct. 7-8, for the best one yet!  Visit nvhistory.org to learn more.