Family, friends and admirers attended a ceremony outside Harpswell’s Centennial Hall on Nov. 10 to dedicate a native black tupelo tree to the late owners of the Vegetable Corner, a beloved local market that closed last year.
The long-living tupelo, Nyssa sylvatica, was planted in honor of Violet “Vi” and Raymond “Ray” Tetreault, who died less than a week apart in early 2023, just a few months after closing the market and celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary.
“This tree that can live for hundreds of years will provide a lasting memory of Vi and Ray,” reads a plaque placed at the foot of the tree. Tupelos can live up to 650 years.
The dedication ceremony was organized by the Harpswell Garden Club and attended by dozens of people, including several members of the Tetreault family.
Event co-organizer John Loyd said a group of admirers — nearly two dozen in all — pooled their resources to purchase a tree and plaque that would be placed in a prominent spot in Harpswell where the couple could be remembered for many years to come.
Garden Club President Tuckie Westfall described the Vegetable Corner as a hub of the community and the place where many people from away got to know Harpswell for the first time.
“When you walked up to the butcher counter, Ray would call out your name with a ‘Hello’ and ask what you wanted today,” Westfall told attendees. “Sometimes you had to wait while he finished a conversation with a friend, which was all the better. If I was waiting, I would wander to the pastry case and hope it wasn’t empty.”
Westfall said the couple’s passing “left a huge void in Harpswell,” but that the tupelo tree “is a wonderful way to remember and honor them.”
From a humble beginning as a roadside stand selling corn on the cob and strawberries, the Vegetable Corner evolved into a must-stop for locals and visitors alike. Ray Tetreault’s butcher counter was the main attraction, but customers flocked to the family business for fresh produce and seafood, and not least of all for the Tetreaults themselves.
In early November, married couple and part-time Harpswell residents Katie Rollins and Joe Cheuvront, also of Brooklyn, New York, announced they had purchased the Vegetable Corner property at Harpswell Neck and Mountain roads from the Tetreault family with plans to open a seasonal market, bakery and cafe in May 2024.
Mary Evitts, one of Vi and Ray Tetreault’s seven children, attended the tree dedication ceremony and expressed her family’s appreciation to the audience.
“We are grateful to have the roots of this tree planted here because of the deep connection we feel for this town,” said Evitts, of West Newbury, Massachusetts. “We do not doubt that our parents are sharing the joy that only God can give us, forever.”
Becky Gallery, chair of the Harpswell Historic Park Gardens Committee, closed out the dedication ceremony by reciting “A Gardener’s Collect,” a prayer written in 1938 by the late Maine writer and journalist Mary Carpenter Kelley.
The prayer ends with the line, “And help us to achieve in living, Oh God, the same harmony and loveliness that we strive for in gardening, exemplifying in both the beauty of holiness.”
