Theresa Maggio

--------(Brattleboro, VT)------- The public is invited to a free screening of "Bills Lumber," a 45-minute documentary about the last days of the Bills family's beloved 86-year-old sawmill in Wardsboro, Vermont. Showtime is 4 pm on Sunday, 23 February 2025.

 

The video follows octogenarian brothers Alan and Everett Bills and their co-owner niece, Debbie Bills Bauer, after the mill sold along with 433 adjoining wooded acres, as they prepare to demolish the working sawmill that their late father, Melbourne Bills, had established in 1936. Great storytellers, Alan and Everett talk about what it was like to grow up on "Bills Hill," their family compound on Route 100 in Wardsboro, recounting harrowing tales of fire and flood with equanimity and a good laugh.

 

"These are amazingly resilient people," said video maker Theresa Maggio. "I feel lucky to know them."

 

Maggio had interviewed the formidable Melbourne Bills, the sawmill's founder, and his wife, Mabel, in the early 1990s when she was a reporter for the Brattleboro Reformer. Some 30 years later, when she learned from Everett's son that the mill had been sold, "I knew I had to tell the story. Theirs was a world fading away."

 

Alan and Everett Bills are so popular that its premiere at Williamsville Hall in Newfane was standing room only. Many people could not get into the hall. After the premiere, the brothers answered questions and told a few stories. "The love in the room was palpable," Maggio said. A fan in the audience was moved to lead the crowd in a round of Auld Lang Syne. A second showing was standing room only. Alan and Everett plan to answer questions for 15 minutes after the Latchis screening.

 

The video was mostly taped the summer and fall of 2023. "I drove back roads a half hour up to the mill several days a week to capture the demolition and removal of the sawmill, the debarker and the planer shed," Maggio said. Seeing them having to destroy their father's legacy was so sad that "every day I drove home crying." But in the end, the Bills's buoyant spirits vanquish all.

 

"I am thrilled to think that these local folk heroes will be seen on the big screen under the Latchis's lapis lazuli ceiling in the very garden of the gods."

 

After its first two local screenings, audience members wrote to Maggio.

Joan Elliott, of Wardsboro, wrote on Facebook,"We will never forget how Everett and Alan helped us after Irene when we lost our bridge. Ever grateful to these wonderful, generous men."

 

Jan Robinson Hull, of Wardsboro, who grew up with the Bills brothers, wrote: "I know this story is dear to many, many people in the area. You got it!... It brought many viewers to tears...We were all very poor, but we didn't know it, we had loving parents and when we got a gift...it was cherished. To me, you have given us the story of the Bills Mill – it is a gift to all of us."

Laura Wallingfor-Bacon of Williamsville wrote that the documentary was "so important to future generations just as Porter Thayer's photographs are to our generation."

Jill Dean of Wardsboro wrote: "My husband and I got the very last seats in the back row and we were 30 minutes early... What a great movie!"

 

• Due to expected bad road weather, the Latchis Theatre has cancelled this Sunday's Feb 16 screening of Bills Lumber and will show it instead next Sunday, Feb 23, at 4 pm.

Press release in today's The Commons weekly events calendar

·
Bills Lumber at the Latchis in the main theater. A Sunday matinee at 4 pm on February 16. If you've seen it before, come see it on the big screen. If you have not seen it, now is your chance!
Free admission. Donations split 50/50 between the non-profit Latchis and Brattleboro Community Television. This 45-minute documentary by Newfane author and video maker, Theresa Maggio, follows the Bills family of Wardsboro as they demolish their beloved 1936 sawmill. Octogenarian brothers Everett and Alan Bills tell stories about what is was like to grow up on Bills Hill, their family compound off Route 100 in Wardsboro. Good hearts and real resilience in this family. Laughter and tears in this tale.

Can't win them all.

 

Sister Dot shot this half-minute video of the full house at the second showing of Bills Lumber, the movie on 18 January 2025.

The people of San Biagio Platani start preparing the all-natural feast and ritual objects now, in January, to be ready for Easter morning. Everything they decorate with is either grown locally, or nearby or is mined. It all comes from the earth. Theymake  bread panel walls and arch liners. They have a different theme every year.

Next screening at the Williamsville Hall, 18 Jan 2025 at 7 pm.Alan and Everett Bills plan to be there. Free admission. Donations welcomed. Donations will be split 50-50 between the Town of Newn of Newfane, which heats the hall, and BCTV (Brattleboro Community Television), the non-profit sponsor of the event. Snow date is Sunday, Jan. 19 at 3pm

I have been working on this local project for more than a year. The world premiere will be held Saturday, 4 January, at 7pm at the Williamsville Hall in Newfane, Vermont. Annie Landenberger interviewed me for The Commons weekly paper. Click on the photo to read the story.