In a nod to the past — the very old past — the village of Orland Park hosted a May Day celebration Saturday.
The spring celebration can be traced back to Roman times, but the village’s historical sites program used the event to highlight the Stellwagen Farm with a traditionally English version of the spring event.
Libby Paulson, the historic sites supervisor, pointed out many of Orland Park’s early settlers were English and would have had traditions celebrating the community.
For an afternoon, the farm took a trip back in time. Under blue, cloudy skies, Pullman Morris and Sword, a Morris dance troupe from the Pullman community, performed English folk dances in period clothes, played drums, accordions and a fiddle and wrapped up with a maypole dance befitting the welcoming of warmer weather.
In a nod to 21st century habits, a coffee and drink food truck set up shop just off the field. But for two hours, Orland Park neighbors came together over folk dances and flower garlands. Some visitors even brought their own garlands and bright spring dresses.
“I’ve been coming to maypole festivals and celebrations, so I thought I’d come to this one,” said Phoenix Crane, who was in town visiting her mother.
This was the first year for the event, but dozens of families poured into the field behind the historic red barn.
“We live next door,” explained Casey Renz, who brought along his daughter and wife. “We saw the sign and we walk the trail every day.”
Their daughter, Tracey, made a flower wreath at a crafts table manned by a couple of Orland Park Historical Society volunteers. Sandra Zahara, one of the volunteers, said she moved to Orland Park in 1968 but had only volunteered about seven years.
One of the things she said she learned as a volunteer is, even from the early days, the first European settlers here celebrated their settlement.
“They loved their community and they did a lot of stuff together,” Zahara said.
“The people who lived here then, they all knew each other,” said another volunteer, Shirlee Calabrese.
The celebration ended with unwrapping the woven ribbons from around the pole, bidding crowds goodbye.
“I think it went great, I’m very happy,” Paulson said.
For the next year, Paulson said the maypole will live in her office as a memento to spring and summer, a farewell to winter. Whether it will ever return again, however, is uncertain.
“It really depends,” Paulson said. “We would love to have it again and get different groups out here.”
For now, Paulson is focused on this year, on this summer.
In June, the Stellwagen Farm will host a movie night showing of “Singing in the Rain” and then in late summer the farm will host a vintage baseball game.
Jesse Wright is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
