Hometown Hero: In Warner, Rebecca Courser celebrated 250
Published: 01-26-2025 11:42 AM
Modified: 01-31-2025 3:27 PM |
The giant white birthday cake was hard to miss.
Parked along Main Street in Warner, the two-tiered wooden structure on wheels was topped with a 250th sign and adorned with orange leaves.
And during the town’s annual Fall Foliage Festival parade, the cake on wheels was the centerpiece of the celebration.
Rebecca Courser can remember decades of the annual celebration. Born and raised in Warner, she returned home shortly after college with intentions to leave again. That day never came.
Now Courser is the town’s resident encyclopedia of all things Warner – and, to no surprise, the retired director of the town’s historical society. Most recently, she led the committee that planned the town’s 250th birthday celebration.
In celebrating two and a half centuries of Warner history, her life-long expertise and community came into focus.
For Warner residents, celebrating the town’s birthday came with a calendar of celebrations.
The year started with an overview of the town’s history told through a photo slideshow and community members baking a family dessert to share at Town Hall. Three tables of sweets filled the 100-year-old brick building.
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Throughout the year, some events highlighted the town’s rich history.
Winter was marked by a reprise of Courser’s snow train talk – detailing the tradition of visitors coming north to ski along the town’s rope tow before Interstate 89 was built through it.
For a few weekends each winter the size of the town, then 1,000 people, would double. Companies in Boston would sponsor weekends to Warner – a reoccurring winter carnival of sorts. The onslaught of visitors meant residents organizing skiing, skating, sleigh rides and ballroom dances in Town Hall.
For kids in town, proceeds would help sponsor school trips or scholarships. For older residents, the funds could help pay off taxes.
“It was a community endeavor,” she said. “That’s where I learned to ski.”
An oral history project years ago – “It had to be done, so I did it” – also captured the working lives of Warner women as farm wives, school teachers and homemakers.
For 18 years, dramatic readings of these anonymized stories were performed statewide. It was performed last year at the United Church of Warner.
“In the script it doesn’t give the women’s names, which makes it even more valuable when you go to other communities because people can see their own story,” she said.
Then, there were the lighthearted moments.
At Town Meeting a kazoo ensemble played Happy Birthday.
Throughout the year, from the MainStreet BookEnds to the top of Mount Kearsarge, people also posed with a “favorite corner of Warner” sign – sharing what part of town they love most with a hashtag online.
To Courser, the year of celebration brought residents together in new ways. In a sense, it was reflective of the community she knew growing up in town.
She thinks of Warner as a tight-knit community – where people took pride in the active Main Street with a bookstore, library, restaurants and food pantry.
But she’s also watched the decline of community spaces. There’s no longer a women’s or men’s club or Order of the Eastern Star in town. Aside from connections through school, youth sports or faith groups, there fewer places for connection, she said.
“Those organizations provided social events not just for their membership, but also ... dinners and bake sales and car washes, newspaper drives and all sorts of things,” she said. “It’s more individualistic rather than community.”
In January, Courser was one of 1,500 people who spent their Saturday at Kearsarge Regional High School voting down a proposed tax cap for the school district.
Courser walked away with “such a good feeling” – not only at the outcome but the widespread participation.
“We used to have meetings like that a long time ago,” she said.
To Courser, learning Warner’s history was a natural part of growing up. Her parents passed down stories from their parents who grew up in town, who learned them from her great-grandparents, too.
Today, she still has to count on her hands the number of immediate family members she has in town – between 30 to 35, and that does not include cousins.
As new generations put down roots, and the town takes on future challenges – the need for more housing, a rising cost of living and political polarization – Courser thinks about the various roles she’s seen residents play over the years at Town Meeting. Civility is key to keeping the conversation community-focused.
“There’s probably always people that take the part of the agitator, the peacemaker, the comedian,” she said. “Those are roles that every Town Meeting needs.”