In Brimfield, the area along Route 20 where the antiques shows are set up was relatively untouched; less than a mile south, there were more than 140 homes seriously damaged or destroyed.
BRIMFIELD – Linda Jackson was at home in London when she heard about the damage the June 1 tornado did to this town she visits three times each year to buy sliver during the Brimfield Antiques Shows.
But Tuesday, as she was packing up recently purchased items to bring back to the London Silver Vaults shop she runs with Peter Cameron, Jackson said news accounts had not prepared her for the level of devastation she has seen in and around Brimfield.
“It’s very sad,” she said. Jackson and Cameron have made friends with residents of Brimfield and surrounding communities in the seven years they have been coming to the antiques shows to buy silver, so they said the damage to people’s homes is something they can feel as well as see.
Suzy Foss and Tom Arida have an even longer connection.
They have been bringing items for sale from Best Antiques in the Buffalo, N.Y., area to the Shelton Field at the Brimfield shows for 30 years.
“We didn’t think it would look like this,” Foss said.
A few tents away, Hunter Foote was selling glass bottles, something he has done at the Brimfield shows for three years now, even though he is only 17.
Foote lives in nearby Wales, so he has been seeing the destroyed houses and thousands of trees uprooted since the damage was done June 1.
As a recent graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Foote was through with his classes by June 1, so he had the time to volunteer to help clean up people’s properties where trees had come down.
Looking around at the tents and the people milling about in the afternoon heat on Tuesday, Foote said, “I am very glad that it wasn’t during the show. A lot of people could have been hurt or lost their lives.”
The June 1 tornado killed three people and left a path of damage and destruction for 39 miles from Westfield to Charlton.
In Brimfield, the area along Route 20 where the antiques shows are set up three times each year was relatively untouched, but less than a mile to the south there were more than 140 homes seriously damaged and nearly 40 destroyed.
Fay Simanski, of Sturbridge, was finding out-of-towners at the antiques shows extremely generous Tuesday as she accepted donations at one of the booths set up for the Harding Fund, a town charitable account established to help the needy of Brimfield.
Simanski got involved through a group of teachers who work for the Tantasqua Regional school system.
Scott Niejadlik, of Boston, and his mother, Eileen Niejadlik, of Brimfield, arranged for the collections for the Harding Fund to go on at the antiques shows and through a website they have established, www.projecthabitat.org.
“People from outside the area who have been coming here to the shows for years are concerned,” Simanski said. “And when they come here they have money.”
For the rest of this week volunteers at the four collection booths at the antiques shows will be accepting cash and checks, and the Niejadliks are hoping to add other methods of payment for donations in time for the September shows.